Church, Cardinal Battaglia: ‘If it remains silent in the face of war, it is complicit’

Naples, 27 Nov. (LaPresse) – ‘A neutral Church is a Church unfaithful to its own God. Neutrality, today, is no longer an innocent option.’ So said Cardinal Domenico Battaglia, Archbishop of Naples, in his opening address for the inauguration of the 2025-2026 academic year of the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy, of which he is Grand Chancellor. A Church that remains silent in the face of corruption, violence, discrimination, torture, wars passed off as special operations, and borders that become death traps is not being prudent: it is complicit. A theology that observes all this with the detachment of a scholar,‘ adds Don Mimmo Battaglia, ’is not neutral: it is siding with the status quo. There are economic systems that kill, migration policies that kill, individual behaviours that kill. And they kill not only the body, but also hopes, words and possibilities. They kill trust, which is the lifeblood of every democracy.”