(ANS - Rome) – “The meaning of the title becomes clear when the author says he wants to encourage anyone looking for a sense of self and the meaning of life to browse through the Bible and find there a real help to pass the night waiting for better times.” With these words, the Rector Major of the Salesians, Fr Ángel Fernández Artime, launched the book If I read you, I will always love you. It is the latest book by Carlo Di Cicco, Deputy Director of Osservatore Romano.

The book, published by Il Pozzo di Giacobbe (Jacob's Well), was launched on Tuesday 21 October at the Conference Hall of the National Press Federation in Rome. In addition to the author and the Rector Major, others who spoke included Professor Franco Ferrarotti, a sociologist, and Marinella Perroni, a theologian. The event was chaired by Francesco Siddi, Secretary of the National Federation of the Italian Press.

In his address, the Rector Major went through the book chapter by chapter highlighting the topics and suggestions. They can be summed up in the idea of the Bible as "a true navigator and a compass for the soul" and in the vision of the Christian God "who is love and whose relationship with man is based on love."

On the issue of education - which cannot but interest Salesians - the Rector Major sees in the pages of Doctor di Cicco’s book a remarkable harmony between God's action and the Preventive System of Don Bosco. "God is an educator. His is a preventive system par excellence (...) God does not fight the person but the evil which afflicts the person. With infinite patience and respect for the freedom that characterizes every human person, God moves him or her towards liberation." Regarding the three pillars of the Preventive System - reason, religion and loving kindness – Fr Ángel said that nowadays loving kindness is the one most needed.

 Another topic of interest to the Rector Major was the question of the true God in relation to the many idols that exist even today. Thus, from the chapter The Calf and the Computer he draws attention to the relationship of modern man with technology that sometimes, instead of being a means, becomes an end in itself.

In the pages on the First Covenant, he said that he appreciated the clarity with which the book shows the possibility of rejecting God and living for themselves, as Cain did. With regard to the chapters on the crossing of the desert and the New Covenant, the Rector Major praised the way the author presents, on the one hand the painful, but necessary, purification and perfection which every person is called to; and on the other the mercy of God, with explicit reference to the Church, where everyone can feel welcome.

Published 28/10/2014