[Trending News] I believe the wallet is red for my salvation

Passing on the street and looking into the coffee, I see the Pope in the news. It spent the night well, again. Francisco was admitted to the Gemelli Hospital in Rome and “continues to present a complex picture.” It has bilateral pneumonia, a type of pneumonia that affects both lungs. We got up with the news that the Pope woke up and took the breakfast, an action that would be banal, if he had not admitted that death may be close.

This week, Portuguese cardinal Tolentino Mendonça even replaced Pope Francis at Sunday, February 16. The newspapers explained: “Pope Francis was hospitalized this Friday, 14, in the morning, for the fourth time […] To perform examinations and proceed with the treatment of bronchitis, according to a Vatican statement, and canceled the agenda until Monday, 17. José Tolentino de Mendonça, mayor of the dicker for culture and education, will take the Pope's place in Driving of Sunday Mass. ”

At 88, Francisco has been a Pope since 2013 and is not new that he has had health problems several times over the past two years. The latest news reports that Francisco presents “slight improvements”, read the newspapers and met with some of the nearest counselors.

Let me take a protagonist I have already named this chronicle and pull another for the text. We can draw many links between Tolentino Mendonça and Ricardo Araújo Pereira. One is both to have a lot of way with the words. I remember the last book I read from the cardinal: And eopuous elongedited by Assyrian and Alvim. It's a book of HaikusJapanese poetry — Short but full of meaning. In 2013, here in the public, we wrote that it could be “your best book”.

The latest connection between Tolentino and Ricardo lies in a book that recently came out in October 2024. What am I doing here? It is a book in which journalist João Francisco Gomes talks to Ricardo Araújo Pereira about God, faith, humor and death. It is a beautiful edition of paint. And where does Tolentino come in? Makes the preface to the book. He writes that, as a believer, he made him well read this book that gives voice to a man who assumes himself. It is thus Ricardo Araújo Pereira: atheist and interested in religion, especially the Christian. Throughout the book, it reveals to dominate the word of God, to know the passages that arise in the conversation, to quote Bible stories as if you have read them yesterday. (Maybe you read, you can have a bible at the headboard. Maybe it is best to ask you when you have the opportunity).

As Tolentino Mendonça explains in the preface, the “starting point for this remarkable conversation […] It is a question asked in the school context, in the volcanic transition of adolescence: “What am I doing here? Why are we born if, later, do we have to die?” The humorist does not remember if there was at the time sketch of response, but it is perfectly remembered that, upon hearing the first excerpt from his question, the class exploded in a laugh. ”

This question, “what I'm here to ask” (here in the world and not in the classroom, as some colleagues may have thought), as tolentino writes, “constituted, in an unforeseen, naked and perplexed way, Aparison of the subject to himself; The emergence of consciousness that reflects on the way and meaning of the world's own crossing; The painful astonishment that death and finitude represent, even if confused, anything of another order. ”

As we know, Ricardo Araújo Pereira is an atheist and speech (and not but speaks) countless times on the subject. In one of the presentations of this book, the humorist even played, saying he is the service atheist in lectures and conferences on the plurality of creeds. His interlocutor in this book, journalist João Francisco Gomes, writes that Ricardo “even admits that perhaps humor and religion have anything in common: it is possible that they are parallel answers to the great concerns of humanity.”

One of the moments that are (of the various) of the Papacy of Francis is to have said that we can laugh at God. He stated this in front of dozens of people whose profession is to make others laugh: humorists. On June 14 last year, comedians Joana Marques, Maria Rueff and Ricardo Araújo Pereira were among the 105 invited by the head of the Catholic Church for a Vatican meeting. In addition to the three Portuguese, comedy figures were present such as Americans Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert and Whoopi Goldberg and Brazilian humorists Fabio Porchat and Cristian Werson. Ricardo Araújo Pereira was in front of the Pope for a couple of seconds, squeezed Francis' hand while exchanged words. Since the Portuguese had the opportunity to explain, at the time, Francis asked if “is it possible to laugh at God too?” And gave the answer: “Of course, yes, this is not blasphemia. Just as we play and make jokes with the people we love. Hebrew wisdom and literary tradition is master in this. It can be done, but without offending the religious feelings of the faithful, especially the poor. ”

According to the Pope, quoted by the agency Ecclesia, “humor does not offend, does not humiliate, does not glue people to their defects” and, addressing the humorists present at the Vatican on Friday, said they “denounce the excesses From power, they give voice to forgotten situations, evidence abuse, point to unsuccessful behaviors. ”

The chief of the church stressed that what he said was not a heresy: “[Q]Using they can make smart smiles sprout from the lips, even from a single spectator, you also smile God. ”

The first conversation between the journalist and the humorist for the book took place on December 21, 2023. They started talking about Ricardo's education and the moment described by Tolentino, in the 8th grade, at Externato da Luz. In this conversation, I get curiosity again about what regularity Ricardo Araújo Pereira reads the Bible. In response to the journalist, Ricardo explains that “this idea of ​​writing literature — Or, if we want to simplify, to tell stories – it has a purpose in the Bible. ” I understand from here that the Bible (this best selling book in the world) can be the basis for many other stories. In 1991, Saramago published Gospel According to Jesus Christ(which earned him, the following year, the Grand Prix of Romance and soap opera of the Portuguese Writers Association). In 2021, Ana Bárbara Pedrosa published Word of the Lord. There are only two examples of how stories may not be as they are described in the Bible: Jesus can live with Mary Magdalene, and God can fall in love with Mary.

Alerted by João Francisco Gomes, Ricardo again hears that it is better to believe in God than not to believe. The humorist well knows: “You get more,” he answers and points out the various hypotheses: “We believe and then it doesn't exist? We haven't lost anything. Do we believe and exist? We won everything. Do we not believe it and exist? We lost everything. We don't believe it and it doesn't exist? We also stayed at home. ” These are necessary accounts, but there is a detail: “No one can force themselves to believe,” explains Ricardo. “We can't say, 'I will believe this wallet is red,” he says, while he takes a black wallet. Did Ricardo like to believe that his wallet is really red? at least like that had guaranteed salvation.

Now that, dear reader, he is entrusted with the new book that brings together Ricardo Araújo Pereira, João Francisco Gomes and God, I recommend his reading or to review the sketches of the smelly cat. For example, the one in which Ricardo preaches as Jesus, who tries not only to use parables to tell the mysteries of the Kingdom of God (Jesus rehearses style figures), the one in which Ricardo interprets a barefoot carmelin that makes convent and warm conventiary With Vincentian nuns (and everything the convent took), or even when Ricardo wears the skin of Roberto, a member of the seminar that receives the news that he will not become a priest because he has not Beirão accent (priest without pronunciation).