Newsgroup: it.cultura.religioni.cristiani
Titolo: Signore, disarmali! Signore, disarmaci!

"Signore, disarmali! Signore, disarmaci!"
Avvenire, 15 febbraio 2003
Mai come in questa vigilia di una possibile guerra contro l'Iraq si e
registrato un consenso cosi ampio da parte di molte chiese nazionali e
locali che accolgono l'invito di Giovanni Paolo II a pregare e a digiunare
per la pace. Mai come in questa "crisi" si e registrato un unisono ecumenico
da parte di tutte le chiese cristiane - ortodosse, evangeliche, anglicane -
nel desiderare la pace. Si, possiamo dire che oggi i cristiani hanno
visibilmente assunto la pace come compito che fa parte della loro sequela
del Signore, hanno capito che l'annuncio della pace fa parte della buona
notizia che e l'Evangelo, vogliono che nessuno possa piu pensare che la
religione cristiana e portatrice di guerra e di violenza.
Certo, Giovanni Paolo II ha impegnato anche tutta la diplomazia della Santa
Sede, ha voluto una missione speciale del cardinal Etchegaray a Baghdad
presso Saddam, ha ricevuto in Vaticano il vice-primo ministro iracheno Tareq
Aziz, ogni giorno si fa mendicante di pace presso i potenti di questo mondo
e quanti possono, da governanti di popoli, diventare signori della guerra.
Ma soprattutto egli prega e chiede di pregare per la pace. In verita, per la
fede cristiana la pace e il dono per eccellenza che Dio fa all'umanita che
cammina nella giustizia e con la capacita del perdono e, proprio per questo,
essa e al cuore della preghiera della chiesa, in particolare della chiesa
cattolica. Chi conosce la preghiera eucaristica detta "Canone romano" - una
preghiera antica di oltre quindici secoli - sa quante volte ricorre l'
invocazione, la richiesta della pace: la chiesa sa di essere bisognosa
innanzitutto di pace.
Questa e la fede della chiesa. I cristiani devono pregare per la pace
convinti che la preghiera e una componente della storia, ha una sua
efficacia nella polis: se i cristiani "con un cuore e un'anima sola" pregano
e invocano lo Spirito santo che illumini la mente e i cuori dei governanti e
di quanti sono responsabili della vita dei popoli, sanno di essere esauditi,
perché cosi ha promesso loro il Signore Gesu. Certo, i cristiani sanno anche
che la preghiera e una forza "debole", ma proprio per questo essa puo essere
un'arma decisiva. Pregare, infatti, non significa evadere dalla storia, non
assumere responsabilita e starsene in una passivita di comodo; pregare e
invece "contemplare" la realta e la complessita delle situazioni di crisi
con un'ottica che e quella di Dio, con una forza che viene dall'alto, con
dei sentimenti che sono quelli di Cristo Gesu e, quindi, affrontare le
vicende umane con una maggior capacita di discernimento e una maggior
risolutezza nell'azione.
Chi prega mostra di non cedere a fatalismi, di non rassegnarsi al male
incombente e di non obbedire a reazioni impulsive: prega per decidere con
Dio un comportamento, prega per ascoltare i fratelli e attuare con loro una
convergenza di intenzioni, prega per affermare con tutto il proprio essere
un radicale rifiuto della violenza, prega per compiere un atto di fede:
credere nella pace tra gli uomini. Non solo, ma "pregare per", intercedere,
significa fare un passo per assumere meglio e piu responsabilmente una
situazione, fino a interporsi tra il male e il bene per far trionfare il
bene. Altro che evasione!
Per questo il cristiano accompagna la preghiera anche con il digiuno,
strumento di partecipazione del corpo alle istanze dello spirito, luogo di
discernimento degli appetiti e segno di una rinuncia al cibo come occasione
di condivisione con gli altri di quanto ci fa vivere: il digiuno e
espressione della volonta e del desiderio di "vivere con gli altri", non
senza gli altri né, tantomeno, contro gli altri, fino a condividere quanto e
necessario per vivere. Fermarsi in silenzio, sperimentare con le fibre del
nostro corpo la carenza di cibo quotidiano, interrogarsi su cosa alimenta le
nostre ragioni di vita e operazione carica di fecondita e di forza. Gesu non
ha forse detto che certi demoni si vincono solo con la preghiera e il
digiuno? La guerra e uno di questi demoni! Si, la preghiera dei cristiani in
questi giorni e quella dei monaci martiri di Tibhirine in Algeria: "Signore,
disarmali, Signore disarmaci!"
Enzo Bianchi

 mentre Bush, secondo il N.Y.Times.....unfortunately non
ancora in italiacano...^--^
< < Back to Start of Article WASHINGTON It was another night at a
White House nearly at war. The Atlantic alliance was splintering,
250,000 U.S. troops were within striking distance of Iraq, and the
pope had sent an envoy pleading for peace.
.
Upstairs, the first lady was entertaining friends for dinner.
Downstairs, a crowd of reporters were assembled. President George W.
Bush, his face already made up for his first prime-time news
conference in 18 months, turned to his chief of staff.
.
"He said, 'Why don't you just leave me alone for a little bit?'" the
chief of staff, Andrew Card Jr., said in an interview Friday. Card,
taken aback, quickly left, he said, and the president quietly closed
the door of his study.
.
For the next 10 minutes, the president of the United States, a man
under inconceivable pressures, sat in solitude, undisturbed.
.
Moments later, Bush strode up to his lectern in the bright television
glare, presenting himself in a nearly hourlong news conference on
Thursday as a leader impervious to doubt.
.
At a time when the world is arguing about what the United States
should do in Iraq, while even Bush's own advisers are still debating
options, his aides say that he has come to realize that making the
decision to go to war is the loneliest moment that presidents face.
Whether war is a last resort that has been thrust upon him, as he
sometimes says, or whether it is his choice to wage it, no one can
fill the space that he alone occupies - not his closest aides, not
the great array of expert advisers, not his wife or even his father,
who made a similar decision when he was president.
.
Presidents handle pressure differently - Richard Nixon retreated,
Bill Clinton got on the phone in the middle of the night - but
historians say that almost all display certitude in public and more
uncertainty in private. Friends and advisers of Bush insist that this
president, in contrast, is much the same in private as he is in
public.
.
While Iraq weighs on him heavily, they say, a president who sees the
world as a biblical struggle of good versus evil has never expressed
any misgivings, or personal vulnerabilities, about going to war
against Saddam Hussein. "He's very determined, I would say," said
Cardinal Pio Laghi, the Vatican peace envoy and a longtime Bush
family friend, who hand-delivered a letter to Bush from Pope John
Paul II, asking the president to avoid an invasion of Iraq. "He was
very friendly, he was very nice, he was very appreciative, but he
didn't give me the idea that he was shaky."
.
The president's appearance of calm in the face of enormous
international opposition to war in Iraq, aides say, is driven by two
forces: Bush's unequivocal belief that Saddam is a grave threat to
the United States and his constant worry that there will be another
Sept. 11 on his watch. "He's worried about another attack every
morning that he walks into the Oval Office," Card said. Bush's
concern is in large part fueled by the first thing he reads every
day, the threat assessment, a compilation of what U.S. intelligence
and law enforcement agencies pick up about potential terrorist
activity. Some of it is reliable, much of it is not, but aides call
it frightening. For the president it is a powerful motivating force.
.
"My job is to protect America, and that's exactly what I'm going to
do," Bush said repeatedly at his news conference Thursday. "People
can ascribe all kinds of intentions. I swore to protect and defend
the Constitution. That's what I swore to do. I put my hand on the
Bible and took that oath."
.
Bush is handling the pressures on him, aides say, by staying faithful
to his orderly and reassuring White House life: exercise, a careful
diet, prayer, no alcohol, a dutiful reading of his nighttime briefing
books, early bedtimes, time with his wife. Bush relaxes, aides say,
by watching ESPN over lunch on a tray brought up to his private
dining room from the White House mess or by poring over the sports
pages. He still schedules an hour each day for exercise, typically
now in the midafternoons.
.
Two weekends ago at Camp David, the president watched "Antwone
Fisher," about an African-American orphan trying to put his life
right after growing up in an abusive foster home. Bush, who
frequently gets too restless to sit through an entire movie, watched
it all.
.
People who have met with Bush have been struck by his tranquillity.
"You would never have known that he was sitting on a powder keg,"
said Don Hewitt, the executive producer of "60 Minutes," who spent 15
minutes with Bush in the Oval Office.
.
"He was amazingly calm and wanted to talk about Harry Truman and not
Saddam Hussein."
.
Aides say that Bush's faith, which led him to stop drinking alcohol
in 1986, is a big factor. "My faith sustains me, because I pray
daily," Bush said at his news conference on Thursday night, speaking
plainly about a topic he usually avoids in public. "I pray for
guidance and wisdom and strength."
.
In the United States, he said, "there are thousands of people who
pray for me that I'll never see and be able to thank," and he added,
"But it's a humbling experience to think that people I will never
have met have lifted me and my family up in prayer."
.
One of the biggest changes in Bush's life in the last two weeks is a
schedule suddenly free of domestic trips and many of the ceremonial
duties of the president's office.
.
In the buildup to war, his aides have cleared blocks of his daily
calendar to give him more time to think - or, more realistically, to
get on the phone, as he did last week, to lobby nearly all of his 14
fellow heads of state in the United Nations Security Council, where
there will soon be a showdown vote on a resolution that would
effectively authorize an attack on Iraq.
.
The longest and most intense of those talks were with Prime Minister
Tony Blair of Britain, the president's closest ally, who faces more
war opposition and risks to his political future than Bush. The two
strategize on the latest vote count - the resolution needs 9 of 15
votes to pass, with no vetoes. So far the United States has only
four, including its own. There were at least two talks last week
between Blair and Bush, aides said, lasting some 20 minutes each.
.
Bush also spoke last week with his father, who called to congratulate
his son on his presentation at the news conference, aides said. The
two men, who have both taken on Saddam as president, continue to
speak all the time, aides say. Aides say they are almost never in the
room during the phone calls.
.
In the march toward war, there has also been an occasional moment of
humor. "While he was giving the State of the Union, he winked at me,"
said Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat. "He sort of
winked a couple of times. And I winked back at him."
.
"Whether you agree with him or not," Schumer said, "one of Bush's
strengths is that he goes with his instincts. And at a time like
this, when the winds are swirling around in all different directions,
a president is well served who has his own internal gyroscope."
WASHINGTON It was another night at a White House nearly at war. The
Atlantic alliance was splintering, 250,000 U.S. troops were within
striking distance of Iraq, and the pope had sent an envoy pleading
for peace.
.
Upstairs, the first lady was entertaining friends for dinner.
Downstairs, a crowd of reporters were assembled. President George W.
Bush, his face already made up for his first prime-time news
conference in 18 months, turned to his chief of staff.
.
"He said, 'Why don't you just leave me alone for a little bit?'" the
chief of staff, Andrew Card Jr., said in an interview Friday. Card,
taken aback, quickly left, he said, and the president quietly closed
the door of his study.
.
For the next 10 minutes, the president of the United States, a man
under inconceivable pressures, sat in solitude, undisturbed.
.
Moments later, Bush strode up to his lectern in the bright television
glare, presenting himself in a nearly hourlong news conference on
Thursday as a leader impervious to doubt.
.
At a time when the world is arguing about what the United States
should do in Iraq, while even Bush's own advisers are still debating
options, his aides say that he has come to realize that making the
decision to go to war is the loneliest moment that presidents face.
Whether war is a last resort that has been thrust upon him, as he
sometimes says, or whether it is his choice to wage it, no one can
fill the space that he alone occupies - not his closest aides, not
the great array of expert advisers, not his wife or even his father,
who made a similar decision when he was president.
.
Presidents handle pressure differently - Richard Nixon retreated,
Bill Clinton got on the phone in the middle of the night - but
historians say that almost all display certitude in public and more
uncertainty in private. Friends and advisers of Bush insist that this
president, in contrast, is much the same in private as he is in
public.
.
While Iraq weighs on him heavily, they say, a president who sees the
world as a biblical struggle of good versus evil has never expressed
any misgivings, or personal vulnerabilities, about going to war
against Saddam Hussein. "He's very determined, I would say," said
Cardinal Pio Laghi, the Vatican peace envoy and a longtime Bush
family friend, who hand-delivered a letter to Bush from Pope John
Paul II, asking the president to avoid an invasion of Iraq. "He was
very friendly, he was very nice, he was very appreciative, but he
didn't give me the idea that he was shaky."
.
The president's appearance of calm in the face of enormous
international opposition to war in Iraq, aides say, is driven by two
forces: Bush's unequivocal belief that Saddam is a grave threat to
the United States and his constant worry that there will be another
Sept. 11 on his watch. "He's worried about another attack every
morning that he walks into the Oval Office," Card said. Bush's
concern is in large part fueled by the first thing he reads every
day, the threat assessment, a compilation of what U.S. intelligence
and law enforcement agencies pick up about potential terrorist
activity. Some of it is reliable, much of it is not, but aides call
it frightening. For the president it is a powerful motivating force.
.
"My job is to protect America, and that's exactly what I'm going to
do," Bush said repeatedly at his news conference Thursday. "People
can ascribe all kinds of intentions. I swore to protect and defend
the Constitution. That's what I swore to do. I put my hand on the
Bible and took that oath."
.
Bush is handling the pressures on him, aides say, by staying faithful
to his orderly and reassuring White House life: exercise, a careful
diet, prayer, no alcohol, a dutiful reading of his nighttime briefing
books, early bedtimes, time with his wife. Bush relaxes, aides say,
by watching ESPN over lunch on a tray brought up to his private
dining room from the White House mess or by poring over the sports
pages. He still schedules an hour each day for exercise, typically
now in the midafternoons.
.
Two weekends ago at Camp David, the president watched "Antwone
Fisher," about an African-American orphan trying to put his life
right after growing up in an abusive foster home. Bush, who
frequently gets too restless to sit through an entire movie, watched
it all.
.
People who have met with Bush have been struck by his tranquillity.
"You would never have known that he was sitting on a powder keg,"
said Don Hewitt, the executive producer of "60 Minutes," who spent 15
minutes with Bush in the Oval Office.
.
"He was amazingly calm and wanted to talk about Harry Truman and not
Saddam Hussein."
.
Aides say that Bush's faith, which led him to stop drinking alcohol
in 1986, is a big factor. "My faith sustains me, because I pray
daily," Bush said at his news conference on Thursday night, speaking
plainly about a topic he usually avoids in public. "I pray for
guidance and wisdom and strength."
.
In the United States, he said, "there are thousands of people who
pray for me that I'll never see and be able to thank," and he added,
"But it's a humbling experience to think that people I will never
have met have lifted me and my family up in prayer."
.
One of the biggest changes in Bush's life in the last two weeks is a
schedule suddenly free of domestic trips and many of the ceremonial
duties of the president's office.
.
In the buildup to war, his aides have cleared blocks of his daily
calendar to give him more time to think - or, more realistically, to
get on the phone, as he did last week, to lobby nearly all of his 14
fellow heads of state in the United Nations Security Council, where
there will soon be a showdown vote on a resolution that would
effectively authorize an attack on Iraq.
.
The longest and most intense of those talks were with Prime Minister
Tony Blair of Britain, the president's closest ally, who faces more
war opposition and risks to his political future than Bush. The two
strategize on the latest vote count - the resolution needs 9 of 15
votes to pass, with no vetoes. So far the United States has only
four, including its own. There were at least two talks last week
between Blair and Bush, aides said, lasting some 20 minutes each.
.
Bush also spoke last week with his father, who called to congratulate
his son on his presentation at the news conference, aides said. The
two men, who have both taken on Saddam as president, continue to
speak all the time, aides say. Aides say they are almost never in the
room during the phone calls.
.
In the march toward war, there has also been an occasional moment of
humor. "While he was giving the State of the Union, he winked at me,"
said Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat. "He sort of
winked a couple of times. And I winked back at him."
.
"Whether you agree with him or not," Schumer said, "one of Bush's
strengths is that he goes with his instincts. And at a time like
this, when the winds are swirling around in all different directions,
a president is well served who has his own internal gyroscope."
WASHINGTON It was another night at a White House nearly at war. The
Atlantic alliance was splintering, 250,000 U.S. troops were within
striking distance of Iraq, and the pope had sent an envoy pleading
for peace.
.
Upstairs, the first lady was entertaining friends for dinner.
Downstairs, a crowd of reporters were assembled. President George W.
Bush, his face already made up for his first prime-time news
conference in 18 months, turned to his chief of staff.
.
"He said, 'Why don't you just leave me alone for a little bit?'" the
chief of staff, Andrew Card Jr., said in an interview Friday. Card,
taken aback, quickly left, he said, and the president quietly closed
the door of his study.
.
For the next 10 minutes, the president of the United States, a man
under inconceivable pressures, sat in solitude, undisturbed.
.
Moments later, Bush strode up to his lectern in the bright television
glare, presenting himself in a nearly hourlong news conference on
Thursday as a leader impervious to doubt.
.
At a time when the world is arguing about what the United States
should do in Iraq, while even Bush's own advisers are still debating
options, his aides say that he has come to realize that making the
decision to go to war is the loneliest moment that presidents face.
Whether war is a last resort that has been thrust upon him, as he
sometimes says, or whether it is his choice to wage it, no one can
fill the space that he alone occupies - not his closest aides, not
the great array of expert advisers, not his wife or even his father,
who made a similar decision when he was president.
.
Presidents handle pressure differently - Richard Nixon retreated,
Bill Clinton got on the phone in the middle of the night - but
historians say that almost all display certitude in public and more
uncertainty in private. Friends and advisers of Bush insist that this
president, in contrast, is much the same in private as he is in
public.
.
While Iraq weighs on him heavily, they say, a president who sees the
world as a biblical struggle of good versus evil has never expressed
any misgivings, or personal vulnerabilities, about going to war
against Saddam Hussein. "He's very determined, I would say," said
Cardinal Pio Laghi, the Vatican peace envoy and a longtime Bush
family friend, who hand-delivered a letter to Bush from Pope John
Paul II, asking the president to avoid an invasion of Iraq. "He was
very friendly, he was very nice, he was very appreciative, but he
didn't give me the idea that he was shaky."
.
The president's appearance of calm in the face of enormous
international opposition to war in Iraq, aides say, is driven by two
forces: Bush's unequivocal belief that Saddam is a grave threat to
the United States and his constant worry that there will be another
Sept. 11 on his watch. "He's worried about another attack every
morning that he walks into the Oval Office," Card said. Bush's
concern is in large part fueled by the first thing he reads every
day, the threat assessment, a compilation of what U.S. intelligence
and law enforcement agencies pick up about potential terrorist
activity. Some of it is reliable, much of it is not, but aides call
it frightening. For the president it is a powerful motivating force.
.
"My job is to protect America, and that's exactly what I'm going to
do," Bush said repeatedly at his news conference Thursday. "People
can ascribe all kinds of intentions. I swore to protect and defend
the Constitution. That's what I swore to do. I put my hand on the
Bible and took that oath."
.
Bush is handling the pressures on him, aides say, by staying faithful
to his orderly and reassuring White House life: exercise, a careful
diet, prayer, no alcohol, a dutiful reading of his nighttime briefing
books, early bedtimes, time with his wife. Bush relaxes, aides say,
by watching ESPN over lunch on a tray brought up to his private
dining room from the White House mess or by poring over the sports
pages. He still schedules an hour each day for exercise, typically
now in the midafternoons.
.
Two weekends ago at Camp David, the president watched "Antwone
Fisher," about an African-American orphan trying to put his life
right after growing up in an abusive foster home. Bush, who
frequently gets too restless to sit through an entire movie, watched
it all.
.
People who have met with Bush have been struck by his tranquillity.
"You would never have known that he was sitting on a powder keg,"
said Don Hewitt, the executive producer of "60 Minutes," who spent 15
minutes with Bush in the Oval Office.
.
"He was amazingly calm and wanted to talk about Harry Truman and not
Saddam Hussein."
.
Aides say that Bush's faith, which led him to stop drinking alcohol
in 1986, is a big factor. "My faith sustains me, because I pray
daily," Bush said at his news conference on Thursday night, speaking
plainly about a topic he usually avoids in public. "I pray for
guidance and wisdom and strength."
.
In the United States, he said, "there are thousands of people who
pray for me that I'll never see and be able to thank," and he added,
"But it's a humbling experience to think that people I will never
have met have lifted me and my family up in prayer."
.
One of the biggest changes in Bush's life in the last two weeks is a
schedule suddenly free of domestic trips and many of the ceremonial
duties of the president's office.
.
In the buildup to war, his aides have cleared blocks of his daily
calendar to give him more time to think - or, more realistically, to
get on the phone, as he did last week, to lobby nearly all of his 14
fellow heads of state in the United Nations Security Council, where
there will soon be a showdown vote on a resolution that would
effectively authorize an attack on Iraq.
.
The longest and most intense of those talks were with Prime Minister
Tony Blair of Britain, the president's closest ally, who faces more
war opposition and risks to his political future than Bush. The two
strategize on the latest vote count - the resolution needs 9 of 15
votes to pass, with no vetoes. So far the United States has only
four, including its own. There were at least two talks last week
between Blair and Bush, aides said, lasting some 20 minutes each.
.
Bush also spoke last week with his father, who called to congratulate
his son on his presentation at the news conference, aides said. The
two men, who have both taken on Saddam as president, continue to
speak all the time, aides say. Aides say they are almost never in the
room during the phone calls.
.
In the march toward war, there has also been an occasional moment of
humor. "While he was giving the State of the Union, he winked at me,"
said Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat. "He sort of
winked a couple of times. And I winked back at him."
.
"Whether you agree with him or not," Schumer said, "one of Bush's
strengths is that he goes with his instincts. And at a time like
this, when the winds are swirling around in all different directions,
a president is well served who has his own internal gyroscope." 

 ancora in italiacano...^--^
Repetita iuvant? :-)))
O sono le tre versioni inglese, americana, e australiana? :-)))
Meleyak
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 ancora in italiacano...^--^
l'articolo di Bianchi mi sembrava un po' più interessante della vicende del
povero Bush.
y.



o illuminato!
non sai che per distinguere il buio bisogna essere nella luce..
pit bum

 pit bum
č un'invito a Bush ad iscriversi al RNS?