The Patriarch of Lisbon criticized the culture of bipolarity, provocations and confrontation

This Monday, the Lisbon Patriarch warned that we are experiencing “the atrocity of bipolarity, which imposes the duty of provocations, irreconcilable confrontation, which only breeds division and is unable to promote a culture of cooperation and inclusion.”

Rui Valerio delivered a Christmas sermon at Lisbon’s Patriarchal Cathedral, which was packed with people, including believers and tourists, who took the opportunity to attend carols and Christmas Mass and see the interior of this centuries-old church.

“Christmas, a typical holiday of welcome, is an invitation to be accessible, to make this openness a feature of our identity,” Rui Valerio said at the first Mass he presided as Patriarch of Lisbon.

The saint needs to create space to “receive and welcome” those who need it most, such as those who “seek work, bread and better living conditions.”

“Today, culturally, we are experiencing the brutality of bipolarization, which imposes a duty of provocation, irreconcilable confrontation, which only breeds division and fails to foster the culture of cooperation and inclusiveness that our country so desperately needs, especially at times as crucial as those what we are experiencing,” repeated Rui Valerio.

Thus, he also said: “Besides highlighting relations with foreigners, it also involves those who are closest to us and share with us the daily work to build more truthful and auspicious days.”

According to the patriarch, the loss of references to the Holy Father means “depriving man of his main personal identity, which should be his son, and a much loved son,” and “the sentence that comes from Christmas shows how much and how man himself, separated from God , loses the meaning of the fullness of life.”

At the Christmas Mass, which lasted about an hour and a half, he spoke mainly about greeting, but also about “the renewed image of man that arose after the birth of Jesus.”