Josep Gil, academician emeritus of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), will present on January 24 in Barcelona his book “Cristians, tanmateix” (Christians, however) (Pagès Editors), a reasoned defence of a secular Church. The event will take place at the headquarters of the Joan Maragall Foundation (Valencia, 244) and will include the participation of Salvador Pié, professor emeritus of the Faculty of Theology of Catalonia and rector of the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Sea in Barcelona; Lluís Pagès, president of Pagès Editors, and Ruth Giordano, Baptist pastor, in addition to the author himself.
In the work, Gil argues how the Catholic Church has been configured in a clerical establishment over the centuries. “Jesus didn’t want that way, Vatican Council II defines it as it should be: People of God. Starting from here, the work conceives a Church of secular structure: small communities that, instead of looking inward, look towards the world with a vocation to engage in society according to the spirit of the Gospel, a Church that overcomes the dichotomy between the laity and the clergy and focuses on what they have in common, becoming mainly Christian and human”, explains the presentation of the work.
Dr. Josep Gil i Ribas
“Being a Christian -says the author- cannot be much more than be a human, a Christian is a lay person, and to be secular, as Savagnone says, is to share the destiny of all men and women in the path”. Gil synthesizes here a thought that has developed over thirty books and numerous articles in specialized publications, a set that exposes a constantly dynamic thinking and never indifferent to the changes of society and the Church.
Born in Reus in 1928, Gil is a priest of the diocese of Tarragona and doctor of Theology. Rector in several parishes, in 1967 he created a youth club that was a space for vindication of democratic values, and in 1975 he promoted the Secretariat of Justice and Peace in defence of human rights. He has been a professor in the Department of Systematic Theology of the Faculty of Theology of Catalonia and a professor at the University of Deusto and the University of San Buenaventura in Cali. In 1999 he received the Joan Maragall prize for the work “L’esperança que no mor” (Hope that doesn’t die). Among his publications, “Història del pensament cristià” (History of Christian thought) stands out.
