Rui Valério, who spoke to the Lusa agency and RTP at the end of the Christmas mass, which took place at the Lisbon Cathedral, highlighted, however, that, regardless of the circumstances that the Portuguese capital is experiencing at the present, “it never stops being a welcoming city, a city of hope”. “All the living forces that compose it, that constitute it, are truly engaged and even committed to the common good and, above all, to promoting the dignity of each human being”, he added.
The Patriarch of Lisbon said he knew that The police, in their actions, “never do anything arbitrarily, neither because they want to, nor because they want to.” “We know that our PSP has one of the most prestigious schools, which is ISPSI, the Higher Institute of Police Sciences for Internal Security, which has international recognition for its scientific competence. Everything that is concrete action in the field of our security forces, it is in this outlined, planned scientific laboratory (…) I can guarantee that it has a very deep ethical dimension”, he highlighted.
“In this ethical dimension there is a principle that is fundamental. (…) The police never use means that are disproportionate to the purposes for which they are intended.. We are a society that only by joining hands, cooperating, building points, encouraging and experimenting and rehearsing understandings, will we, as a Portuguese society, continue the course of history, which is the history of Portugal”, he maintained.
Regarding the various conflicts that are currently raging around the world, the Patriarch of Lisbon recalled the recent words of Pope Francis who, together with many world leaders of different religious denominations, has encouraged and promoted: “religion is a factor of peace” .
“The religious dimension is the one that brings people closer to God, to transcendence, but, at the same time, it brings people closer to each other, makes them close, sensitive. That’s why my wish for the next year is that, enlightened by this climate and by this overflowing force of hope, the world will truly be the world that we all dream of and that Jesus comes to show us is possible”, he argued.
Asked by Lusa about the fact that there has been an increase in populism around the world lately, knowing, historically, that this leads to extremism, Rui Valério considered it “a violation of dignity”. “Populism is always the exploitation of the human being or some aspect of the human beingan exploitation for purposes that are not exactly the promotion of the dignity of the person himself. And that’s why it’s an insult to dignity”, he replied.
“Populism always tramples on human beings in their dignity, in their configuration as a person. When populism in itself is already that, things can only get worse from there. Extremism, radicalism, intolerance, misunderstanding, well, it’s all a consequence of that first step when the human being or a condition of the human being is instrumentalized, their need, their hunger, their lack”, he added.
From there, he asked, what is the first step towards major humanitarian catastrophes? “It’s when we stop looking at each other as an end. And I’m afraid that populism lives a little bit of this playbook. And when the reasons are religious it is also reprehensible”, he defended.
“All those paths that lead to war, violence, exploitation, the trampling of human beings, are paths that we must first condemn, denounce and then correct. We cannot accept that religion, in any case, in any circumstance , be a means to achieve, ultimately, less noble designs or goals for society”, he said.
Rui Valério admitted that the use of the religious factor for these distorted purposes “is a constant in history, extremism”. “But it has been a constant in history since antiquity. I believe that today it is up to those responsible, what are commonly known as religious leaders, to protect this integrity of the religious dimension of the human being, of his spiritual dimension, which is truly central to the person’s life and for the life of a society”, he concluded.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt
