Javier Cercas: "The world needs a revolutionary church."

The godless madman arrives among the Rimini club members to discuss his book , "The Madman of God at the End of the World," in which he recounts his journey with Pope Francis to Mongolia. Javier Cercas is not only a great Spanish writer but also a true intellectual. An atheist and anti-clerical, he is a key figure in the secular culture of the European left, thanks to his commentaries in El Pais and his extraordinary books ( Soldiers of Salamis , Anatomy of an Instant , The Impostor , to name the most widely read). It's hard to imagine a less accommodating visitor to the Rimini event. And yet Cercas doesn't seem to have lost his proverbial curiosity, interested in understanding a reality that should be the polar opposite of his own culture. He says that as soon as he arrived at the Fair, he visited the exhibition "Called Twice ," dedicated to the martyrs of Algeria, and met Sister Lourdes Miguélez Matilla, the Spanish Augustinian missionary nun who survived the terrorist attack that cost the lives of her fellow nuns Esther and María Caridad. Anyone who has read "The Fool of God" knows that the missionary Church is the Church Cercas admires the most.

Here in Rimini, you met with Paolo Ruffini, head of the Vatican Dicastery, and with the writer Colum McCann. How do you feel, "a fool without God," at the Meeting?

I'd heard a lot about the Rimini Meeting, but I'd never been here. It's a very unique experience. I saw an exhibition, the one on the Catholic martyrs of Alegria, which was fantastic. I spoke with a Spanish nun, Sister Lourdes... No, it shouldn't be surprising that someone like me—a non-believer, an agnostic, and I still don't know how to define myself after this book—is interested in the Church. Some have asked me why I agreed to write the book about the Pope's trip to Mongolia. But if the Vatican gives you the opportunity, opens its doors, gives you the chance to ask whatever questions you want and ultimately write whatever you want, why would I say no? The Catholic Church has been absolutely crucial for two thousand years. Not just for Catholics, but for the entire world and from every perspective. So how could I not go there to see what's happening? Part of the surprise of my latest book—a happy surprise because it's being read in so many countries—is that a non-believer, yet respectful, goes to see exactly what's happening.

What was the most difficult challenge of this “godless madman” adventure following the Pope?

The hardest part wasn't reading so many books, gathering so much information about the Vatican, the Church, and Pope Francis, but rather clearing my mind of prejudices. We're all full of prejudices about the Catholic Church. Prejudices for and against. I thought: it's difficult but necessary to arrive there without prejudice, with a clear mind, to understand what's really going on. I wanted to understand who this man was, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who became Francis. If you do that, surprises are constant. Everything becomes surprising.

In this case, it's not just about honesty, but also about genuine curiosity... and your books often convey the ambiguity of life. In the Italian translation of your book, you use the word "guazzabuglio" (hodgepodge). You write: I would like this book to be a hodgepodge, meaning that it contains a bit of everything... And it occurred to me that in The Betrothed , Alessandro Manzoni uses this expression to describe the heart of Gertrude's father (who forces his daughter into the nun's life through psychological violence): the hodgepodge of the heart.

Yes, ambiguity, confusion: this is my conception of the novel. Even in other novels, like The Impostor , for example, it's a mixture of things. God's Fool at the End of the World is partly a chronicle, partly an essay, partly a biography, even a bit of an autobiography of someone like me, who, like most Europeans, raised Catholic, at a certain point lost his faith.

Let's not spoil your book, but I ask you: what conclusion did you reach?

One of the most intelligent words I've ever heard, perhaps the most intelligent thing I've ever heard about the Catholic Church, said to me after years of working on this book, was a priest who worked his entire life in a prison. That the Church is united, he told me, with so many people so different and so often contradictory and divided, can only be explained in one way: the Holy Spirit holds it together. The Church is incredibly complex. There are all kinds of people: this is something I learned from this book.

Besides ambiguity, there is another quality of good literature: humor…

There's no novel without irony and a sense of humor. We don't think of the Catholic Church and Christianity when we think of a sense of humor. In fact, Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Antichrist, tells Christians that your funeral faces are the main accusation against your beliefs. And yet, what did I find in the Vatican? A Pope who makes a radical vindication of a sense of humor. And I think this is important. Pope Francis said this to a close friend of his named Lucio Brunelli, who is now also a friend of mine. Lucio tells me that one day the Pope said to him: "You know, Lucio, the closest thing to divine grace is a sense of humor." And that's fantastic. Lucio didn't know it, but the Pope's first language was Spanish. And in my language, we say "graziosa" (a charming person) when someone makes you laugh.

That's what you said here today in the debate at the Meeting. The Church needs to be attractive, to change its language...

As someone who sees things from the outside, the Church needs a linguistic revolution. That is, it has a problem with its communication and it knows it very well. Jesus Christ changed the world with words, with his speeches. His word was powerful, attractive. The Church today, however, is not attractive. It is losing faithful in Europe, in Spain, even in Italy... It lacks a fresh, lively, revolutionary language like Christ's, with a sense of humor, irony, and complexity.

You write about a missionary Church as an ideal Church. Why?

What does a missionary do? He seeks out those who don't think like him. Not just Muslims, not just Buddhists, but also atheists and non-believers. So this is a way of going beyond. Obviously, the Church has many flaws throughout its history. But it also has its virtues.

And she says she should rediscover the language of the beginning, a very radical language too…

We need a revolution: Christianity can't be lukewarm, tranquil, conservative... I wrote this yesterday in a commentary for El Pais : Jesus Christ was a revolutionary, a subversive. He was a dangerous man, who said dangerous things. I came to bring peace; I didn't come to bring peace, but the sword, he said. He told all men and women that they were equal at a time when slavery was widespread.

Its subversion is through the cross, that is, through an apparent defeat, through a maximum weakness, through a disarmed gratuitousness…

The most radical revolution is precisely this: the revolution against death. But sometimes I feel like some Christians forget this. The total revolution is the revolution against death. This is the core of Christianity: the resurrection of the body and eternal life. I'm not saying this, St. Paul says it. Rebellion against death is incredible. It's crazy. And it happens unarmed.

Opening: Javier Cercas at the Meeting (Photo Meeting Rimini)