ASST Papa Giovanni XXIII, Bergamo: a new organizational Microbiology and Virology Laboratory structure to face the health emergency from the Sars-Cov-2 outbreak.

On January 12, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 an emergency of international interest. The first documented case in the "Pope John XXIII" Hospital in Bergamo was identified on Friday, February 21, 2020. The ASST Pope John XXIII of Bergamo was among the very first Hospital Companies to implement a series of organizational remodelling to quickly face the health emergency from the Sars-Cov-2 outbreak. In this context, we will describe the role and organizational changes adopted by the Complex Operating Unit (UOC) Microbiology and Virology. Laboratory diagnostics can effectively help counteract this and other (future) viral outbreaks. Molecular diagnostics is the only method currently recommended for the identification of infectious cases. The gold-standard method for identifying the virus is Real-time PCR (RT-PCR) according to both the protocol of the Charitè University Hospital in Berlin and the American CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention). Biological samples of the lower respiratory tract (sputum, endotracheal aspirate, or broncho-alveolar washing) or alternatively upper respiratory tract samples are preferred for the execution of a swab for each nostril and a swab for each side of the oropharyngeal cavity. The need to adopt a new organizational structure also concerned the UOC Microbiology and Virology, which was quickly called upon to cope with the health emergency by making its contribution through molecular research of the Sars-Cov-2 virus. We will illustrate the salient phases of the reorganization that led to the execution of over 1000 molecular swabs per day and the implementation of a service in H24. Properly managing human resources in the 24 hours was essential for the proper functioning of the laboratory itself and to deal with the ongoing health emergency. In this even evolving and uncertain context, it was difficult to adopt predefined strategies, but the right involvement, the self-denial of the staff and the strong team spirit have made it possible to achieve excellent performance and quality results.

Mediterranean Vector of International Relations in the Mirror of Sigismund of Luxembourg’s Conflict with Venice (1411—1413)

The article covers international and diplomatic aspects of the conflict of Sigismund of Luxembourg, the King of Hungary and the Romans, and the Republic of Venice in 1411—1413. Venetian claims to Dalmatia that nominally belonged to the Hungarian Crown were the formal reason of the conflict. The article notices that the main battleground was in Italia, not Dalmatia. The author thereupon concludes that the actual factor of the events was the competition between Italian states. But contrary to the traditional opinion the researcher assigns the part of the main power that competed with Venice to Florence, not Genoa. In the early fifteenth century it entered into the struggle for the outlet to the sea and sought the extension of its influence for account of new trade lines that connected the Mediterranean with Central and North Europe. Meanwhile, the head-on clash of the republics was ruled out because their relations guaranteed them both the safety of the political balance of Italy and the defence of the peninsula from external actions. But Florence could force Venice by the manipulation by the Italian policy of the King Sigismund. The instrument of the pressure was the potential union of the King and the Pope John XXIII. It was the interests of Florence that made it possible to explain the reason that kept them from direct official contacts. The investigation of the nature of the conflict reveals also its indirect connection with historical events related to West European states, Poland, the Teutonic Order, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottomans and the Golden Horde.

Methodological problems of interdisciplinary peace research

The increase in international tensions and the threat of global selfdestruction has determined the appearance of new interdisciplinary sciences aimed to investigate ways of contradictions resolving and raising the peace process’s effectiveness. Since the Second World War, issues of peace have become the object of study for several disciplines: polemology, eirenology, conflict resolution, and peace studies. They coexisted and rivalled in questions of methods and ways of cognition and achievement of peace. From 1960 to 1980, peace studies had been taking the first place. It had broadened and deepened the object and methods of peace research and been transformed into a separate interdisciplinary scientific field for studying and analyzing the preconditions for forging a lasting peace. Peace studies has combined conflict studies, development studies, philosophical-ethical reflections, historical context, and the international relations theory. Within peace research, two main schools have coalesced. The American traditional school (J. Burton) went in for peace keeping through predominantly analyzing international relations, arms control, disarmament, balance of power, and methods to establish peace „from the top”. The Scandinavian critical school (J. Galtung, B. V. A. Rolling, K. Boulding), based on updated social doctrine of the catholic church (the encyclicals of Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI), studied the underlying basis of conflict, having developed the theory of positive peace as a state of absence of not only direct but also of structural violence. Since the beginning of the 21st century, over 300 academic institutions and universities have been engaged in peace studies. Current peace research focuses on problems of global climate change, terrorism, sustainable development, failed states, and violation of human rights. At the same time, unsteady terminology is a significant problem of peace studies. R. Seidelman spoke about peace studies as a discipline in its infant stage. Evidently, a hybrid type of warfare, novel compound risks and threats to international security will promote the appearance of new directions of peace research. Key words: war, conflict, peace studies, peace research, peace process, conflict resolution, polemology.

The Aggiornamento Phenomenon and the Second Vatican Council

The Second Vatican Council was a unique event in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Initiated by Pope John XXIII, it was intended to make the Roman Catholic Church more open to the contemporary society and bring it closer to the people. The principal aim of the council was the so called aggiornamento (updating). The phenomenon of updating the ecclesiastical life consisted in the following: on the one hand, modernization of the life of the Church and closer relations with the secular world; on the other hand, preserving all the traditions upon which the ecclesiastical life was founded. Hence in the Council’s documents we find another, French word ressourcement meaning ‘return to the origins’ based on the Holy Scripture and the works of the Church Fathers. The aggiornamento phenomenon emerged during the Second Vatican Council due to the movement within the Catholic Church called nouvelle theologie (French for “new theology”). Its representatives advanced the ideas that became fundamental in the Council’s decisions. The nouvelle theologie was often associated with modernism as some of the ideas of its representatives seemed to be very similar to those of modernism. However, what made the greatest difference between the two movements was their attitude towards the tradition. For the nouvelle theologie it was very important to revive Christianity in its initial version, hence their striving for returning to the sources, for the oecumenical movement, for better relations with non-Catholics and for liturgical renewal. All these ideas can be traced in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and all this is characterized by the word aggiornamento.

Catholic Charismatic Renewal and Pentecostalism

A new set of Pentecostal renewal started in the early twentieth century leading to the proliferation of Pentecostal denominations, and renewal movements within the then existing denominations. The beginning of this Pentecostal renewal has often been linked with the Bethel Bible School, which was started by Charles Fox Parham, and amplified by William Joseph Seymour at Azusa Street, Los Angeles, in the US. This article brings another dimension of the renewal by demonstrating that, for the Catholic Charismatics the outbreak of the Holy Spirit in the early twentieth century was partly an answer to the prayer of Pope Leo XIII. In addition, the Catholic Charismatic advocates consider the Pentecostal experience, dubbed Duquesne Weekend, which led to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movements as the answer to the prayer of Pope John XXIII at the Second Vatican. The considerations of the Catholic Charismatics are presented apparently as an affirmation of the sovereignty of God over his Church and the world.

Mass Exodus

In 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council with the prophecy that ‘a new day is dawning on the Church, bathing her in radiant splendour’. Desiring ‘to impart an ever increasing vigour to the Christian life of the faithful’, the Council Fathers devoted particular attention to the laity, and set in motion a series of sweeping reforms. The most significant of these centred on refashioning the Church’s liturgy. Over fifty years on, however, the statistics speak for themselves—or seem to. In America, only 15% of cradle Catholics say that they attend Mass on a weekly basis; meanwhile, 35% no longer even tick the ‘Catholic box’ on surveys. In Britain, of those raised Catholic, just 13% still attend Mass weekly, and 37% say they have ‘no religion’. But is this all the fault of Vatican II, and its runaway reforms? Or are wider social, cultural, and moral forces primarily to blame? Catholicism is not the only Christian group to have suffered serious declines since the 1960s. If anything Catholics exhibit higher church attendance, and better retention, than most Protestant churches do. If Vatican II is not the cause of Catholicism’s crisis, might it instead be the secret to its (comparative) success? Mass Exodus is the first serious historical and sociological study of Catholic lapsation and disaffiliation. Drawing on a wide range of theological, historical, and sociological sources, it also offers a comparative study of secularization across two famously contrasting religious cultures: Britain and the USA.

Sinais dos novos tempos – 40 anos depois do Vaticano II

Um primeiro sinal é o chamado “relativismo teológico”. Tanto nas ciências ditas exatas, como na filosofia, passamos por um período de extrema crítica dos sistemas que se apresentam como a verdade universal e definitiva. Ora, a teologia oficial aparece justamente como um desses sistemas de verdade absoluta que a cultura atual condena. Por trás desses sistemas de verdades absolutas, os críticos denunciam uma vontade de poder. Um segundo sinal está ligado ao primeiro: há uma consciência cada vez mais viva de que todos os problemas da Igreja católica estão ligados ao clero como estrutura de poder. Um terceiro sinal é a ligação cada vez mais significativa entre o Vaticano e o sistema de poder mundial, o que tem por conseqüências “os silêncios da doutrina social da Igreja”. O quarto sinal é a afirmação do pentecostalismo como o maior fenômeno religiosos da época. Por fim, termino com um desafio, ou seja, com a proposta da escolha entre duas opções: a opção da fixação nas estruturas estabelecidas como resistência às seduções de um mundo que se destrói a si mesmo, opção tomada em Roma desde a Revolução francesa e defendida pela Opus Dei, ou a opção do risco, opção do diálogo com a humanidade atual, tal como ela é, dando valor aos elementos positivos, como fez João XXIII.Abstract: A first sign is the so-called “theological relativism”. Both in the said exact sciences and in philosophy, we are going through a period in which those systems that present themselves as the universal and definite truth are severely criticized. Now, official theology appears precisely as one of theses systems of absolute truth that the present culture rejects. Behind these systems of absolute truth, the critics see a desire for power. A second sign is connected to the first one: there is a growing awareness that all of the Catholic Church’s problems are related to the clergy as a power structure. A third sign is the more and more significant association between the Vatican and the world’s power system, an association that has as a consequence “the silences in the Church’s social doctrine”. The forth sign is the affirmation of Pentecostalism as the greatest religious phenomenon of this age. Finally, I end with a challenge, that is, the suggestion that we must choose one of the following two options: either the option of dependence on the established structures in order to resist the temptations of a world in a process of self-destruction – an option adopted in Rome since the French Revolution and advocated by Opus Dei, or the option of risk, of a dialogue with mankind as it is now, emphasizing its positive elements as it was done by the Pope John XXIII.

Caritas in Veritate: Uma bússola para o século XXI

A Encíclica Caridade na verdade é complexa e articulada. O texto se desenvolve, por um lado, segundo o método dedutivo, típico das primeiras encíclicas sociais, ou seja, a partir de princípios, dos quais se derivam progressivamente as conclusões. Mas, por outro lado, segue o método indutivo – tão claramente usado por João XXIII na Mater et magistra, própria do ver, julgar e agir. A ênfase de Bento XVI no documento em análise é que “sem a verdade, a caridade resvala para o sentimentalismo. O amor torna-se uma concha vazia, a ser preenchida arbitrariamente e se transforma em uma cultura sem a verdade” (n. 3), reduzindo o amor a um âmbito privado e restrito. Consequentemente, se não existe a verdade em relação ao que é bom/mau para o homem, a busca e o esforço para edificar uma vida associada só pode transformar-se e continuar a ser um desencontro, para impor os próprios interesses individualistas. Pois, “sem verdade, sem confiança e amor em prol do verdadeiro, não há consciência e responsabilidade social e cai-se sob o poder dos interesses privados e da lógica do poder. Ocorrem então os efeitos desagregadores sobre a sociedade, e tanto mais, em uma sociedade desafiada a conviver com a pluralidade cultural e em momentos difíceis e complexos, como os atuais, em crescente processo de globalização” (n. 5). A Encíclica enfatiza a valorização das atividades e organizações caracterizadas pela cooperação, a economia solidária e as variadas atividades do terceiro setor. Não se endereça apenas aos católicos, mas a todos os cristãos e às pessoas de boa vontade, apelando às diversas religiões para que contribuam no esforço comum de criar processos de sinergia em prol de um mundo e de uma sociedade melhores.Abstract: The encyclical Charity in truth is complex and formulated in articles. On the one hand the text is developed according to a deductive method that was typical of the early social encyclicals, that is, it starts with principles from which the conclusions are gradually derived. But, on the other hand, it also follows the inductive method – so clearly used by Pope John XXIII in the Mater et magistra a characteristic of the seeing, judging and acting. What Bento XVI emphasizes on the document under analysis is that “without the truth, charity slides into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell to be arbitrarily filled and becomes a culture without the truth” (n. 3) reducing love to a private and restricted ambit. Consequently, if there is no truth with regard to what is good/bad for man, the search and the effort to build an associate life can only change but continues to be in discordance in order to impose its own individualist interests. For, “without truth, and without trust and love in favour of the truthful, there is no consciousness and social responsibility and we fall under the power of private interests and of the logic of power. Then its disaggregating effects fall onto society and more so if it is a society facing the challenge of coexisting with cultural plurality and going through difficult and complex moments, such as the present ones, in a growing process of globalization” (n. 5). The encyclical emphasizes the valorization of the activities and organizations characterized by cooperation, by a friendly economy and the various activities of the third sector. It is not only addressed to Catholics, but to all Christians and people of good will, calling on the various religions to contribute in a common effort to create processes of synergy in benefit of a better world and a better society.