In one of his plays, Camus explains that Saint Demetrius had an appointment with God himself in the steppe one day. On his way, he found a peasant whose cart had got stuck up to the axle in thick mud. He didn't think twice. He rolled up his sleeves and helped him. He had to work hard, but in the end, they managed to free the cart and Saint Demetrius ran to his appointment. But God was no longer there.I have thought a lot about this "he was no longer there". My theologian friends tell me that God was the farmer, but they don't convince me. My experience tells me that I am always late for appointments with God, even if for much less philanthropic reasons than those of Saint Demetrius. But I am not so late that I cannot see some trace of his evanescent presence. Thinking about it, when the mayor of Masnou invited me to give an intervention in public space, I responded by writing on a pedestrian crossing in the town that "The soul is the cage where the dandelion of the bird that has just escaped floats".The place where I most clearly feel the echo of the expanding wave of his presence is in the face of good Christians, of whom there are some, even if they don't care much for marketing. I can assure you: interacting closely with them is one of life's great experiences. It is possible to doubt God's existence. It is within anyone's reach. The Bible is full of doubters and the wary. But in the face of a good Christian, it is difficult not to believe that the light that illuminates their face is vicarious of another, greater light. It has been good Christians who have made me, a very mediocre Christian, understand the meaning of Nietzsche's words in Beyond Good and Evil: “To the homines religiosi one could include among artists as their supreme category.”I met Viqui Molins many years ago, at a bookstore stand on Sant Jordi's Day. I was struck by the number of neglected people, with evident existential wounds, who came to greet her. She knew their names and surnames, the history of their despair. She was interested in their problems with a welcoming and sincere normality. I asked her what exactly she did. "I am a Teresian nun," she told me. I already knew that, but there was something deeper in her than a mere charisma of label. She explained to me that she took care of the bad thief. "It's easy – she clarified – to take care of the good thief. He has stumbled, you help him up and from that moment on he walks straight and grateful; the bad thief, however, takes advantage of you helping him to vomit to steal your wallet." And at that moment I saw the light of her face.

The magazine El jueves and the RBA communication group that publishes it have been sentenced for illegitimate interference with the right to honor by having selected Polonia Castellanos, president of the Spanish Foundation of Christian Lawyers, as one of the "Dumbasses of the Year" in 2024. Although the sentence is not final because there is a right of appeal, the Court of First Instance of Valladolid has ruled in favor of Castellanos, who will receive compensation of 4,000 euros for damages caused, plus the 2,000 that the foundation will receive.

In a country that is both Catholic and priest-eater like ours, the relationship between religion and politics has historically been sinuous and critical. Polarization became very extreme during the Civil War, the echo of which continues to resonate. Vox-PP remind us of it every day. At the same time, there are surprising phenomena: we have, for example, a socialist president, Salvador Illa, who does not hide his Christian humanism in the midst of a society that is going in another direction, increasingly secularized and orphaned of meaning. And at the same time, we have an independentist far-right that banally warns about the dangers facing Christian civilization, whose values it does not practice.

Oriol Jara (Barcelona, ​​1980) is a screenwriter and television director. He has been, among other things, assistant director of the program Buenafuente, screenwriter of Poland and currently directs The jungle, the afternoon program on TV3. But Jara is also a Christian activist. And, with the book Why I believe in God, begins a new collection of Destiny of Thought in which various people answer the question posed in the book's title: why do they believe in God?

I am an atheist. And, while remaining so, I now find myself on the side of the Christians. Our enemy is strong: it relies, perhaps without much awareness of it, on paganism, on nature itself, and on the philosophy that followed Friedrich Nietzsche. Perhaps those of us on the Christian side don't even know we are Christians. I'm not talking, of course, about religion, but about a clash between worldviews that erupted in the 20th century and is characterizing the 21st.

DomainTom Holland's book is probably the best history of Christianity published to date. Aside from revealing the immense global influence of Christian cultural values, beyond the religious sphere, the reader may reach the last page with the feeling that there is nothing new under the sun. If we limit ourselves to the realm of the Catholic, or universal, Church, it is evident that it has never ceased to revolve around two fundamental issues: poverty and purity. Now, as the world plunges into a dizzying crisis, both issues are highly topical. And they demand clear positions. The question of priestly purity or impurity has resurfaced in recent decades, with the continuous denunciations of abuse and rape by members of the clergy. And the Doctors of the Church have continued to refer to an idea formulated in the fourth century to oppose the Donatists.

Pope Francis briefly reappeared before the faithful this Sunday to impart his blessing. urbi et orbi, in Rome and around the world. From the central gallery of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, in front of more than 35,000 people, the Pontiff delivered his blessing in a whisper and wished everyone a happy Easter.

Forgiveness, compassion, respect for others, work ethic, humility, love... These are values that, whether we like it or not, have permeated us for centuries. And that, despite the death of God and the triumph of depersonalized AI, refuse to disappear. Nostalgia for faith? No. Perhaps nostalgia for the good life. President Salvador Illa, like a leftist hill, shamelessly proclaims these values. President Donald Trump, in practice, loudly denies them every day. By action or omission, both remind us of this undercurrent of Western history that draws on the classical Greco-Roman world and the redeeming figure of Jesus. Christian humanism: the person, with their contradictions and weaknesses, at the center.

After surprising everyone last August by announcing that he was resigning as bishop of Solsona "for strictly personal reasons", Xavier Novell has already requested the necessary documentation to get married in a registry office with his partner, as reported today by the newspaper El Mundo. Novell, who has not yet given official explanations of the reasons for his resignation or his new personal situation, presented a request to get married at the Civil Registry of Súria (Bages) on October 7, according to an edict signed by the justice of the peace, Jaume Bransuela Alsina.