“May God bring us to confession”

I learned this saying from my grandmother, my first and unforgettable catechist. The verb was different, more sonorous, but it sounds violent to falsely prudish Latin American ears. This fueled the lines for confession. I remember an important intellectual who, at the end of his life, full of complexes, barely left the confessional before returning. During the insomnia of adolescence, I wondered: will I be ready when the time comes? Even more so when dreamlike images populated and stained my sheets. "The great sin of the flesh," my Salesian teachers would shout. "How many times?", for the accounting of sins. The language of a popular Catholicism with Jansenist seeds brought the panic of an ever-possible condemnation.

Nothing beats humor for dispelling fears and anxieties. What saved me was reading a book on my grandparents' bookshelf. The author, an unknown Cami (no first or last name, note, with an i), published in 1929 in Madrid, *El juício final*. A premature novel (there is a translation by the Vecchi edition from 1947). Jokingly irreverent, it described what would follow the sounding of the trumpets, inviting humanity to squeeze into the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And it was a huge dispute: this arm was mine before yours, etc...

Dante Alighieri, in his Divine Comedy, outlines the three planes: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. It is called Commedia because, unlike Tragedy, it ends well. This theme later obsessed Giovanni Papini. His posthumous work, Judgment of the Universe, which took him twelve years to write, describes imaginative interviews of illustrious people with the Creator. At the end of his life, he finally placed all of humanity in Paradise.

All the medieval imagery in Dante and the modern imagery in Papini are a narrative, in high poetry and theological reflection, of what we can read from Jesus' eschatological discourse (Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21).

Jesus indicates: after many tribulations, "whoever endures to the end will be saved. And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:13-14). When will that be? "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Matthew 24:36). This passage from Jesus' teaching, seemingly isolated, is directly linked to the apocalyptic writings of the Jewish tradition. Many saw in it an imminent end (the great crisis of the second century), others the fall of Jesus beyond the year 62. But the lesson goes further, throughout history, as seen in the parable of the faithful and prudent servant (Matthew 24:45-50; Luke 12:41-48). Or in the parable of the five foolish virgins and the five wise ones (Mt. 25:1-13). One day...

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Jumping to our present day, allow me an allegory. Let's imagine that the Valley of Jehoshaphat is there, on the esplanade of the Ministries. The Lamb's throne would certainly have its back to Congress, looking down at the bus station, where hurried crowds arrive and depart without stopping.

The authorities, for the moment still enjoying privileged status, line up, intently, at the front of the queue, aware of their importance. Temer with his pathetic cohort, Eunício de Oliveira and his senators, Rodrigo Maia and his deputies. A historical precedent, this time farcical: the voting queue in Dilma's impeachment, one of the lowest moments in our politics. What would remain of this judgment? Very little: a minority of some senators and deputies. Temer, trying to survive, a living dead man, huddled among his frightened advisors: Moreira Franco and Eliseu Padilha.

Some might think that the trial would then pass to the judiciary, from the eager Moro to the Supreme Court. But they too will be judged and must join the queue like the others. Some of them far behind, crumpled robes, to punish their egos.

But let's leave this farce behind and breathe in the bigger picture.

The modern world introduced a decisive variant. In England, a new space for judgment emerged. It stemmed from the Magna Carta of 1215, which limited the power of John Lackland, passed through the beheading of a king (Charles I), grew with the long insanity of another (George III), and gradually, a new scenario took shape: the English Parliament. At the beginning, it was limited to nobles and the gentry. With the trauma of the French Revolution (another king guillotined), we slowly arrived at universal suffrage and women's voting rights. The paths of history are winding. They pass through Hobbes' Leviathan and the centrality of property in Locke.

The vote will be a great instrument of judgment, which God has given to humanity. He has transferred this terrible responsibility to the citizens. There was resistance from the ancien régime. The religious authorities, with the Pope at the forefront, feared losing power. Pius IX, in his Syllabus, condemned these new ideas as diabolical.

This freedom and, at the same time, obligation to decide, is called democracy. In various Christmas messages, Pius XII, starting in 1942, gradually embraced this democracy. Many will speak of historical opportunism, with the Allied victory imminent. The conditions that drive history forward are not always unjust.

Democracy implies responsibility and a scenario of justice and equality. Nothing could be further from the concentrating neoliberalism. Pope Francis recently stated: "If profit remains the ultimate goal, democracy tends to become a plutocracy, in which inequalities grow, as does the exploitation of the planet."

Betinho, in a memorable text that he wrote at my instigation, declared:

"...my gaze and my attention are focused on society. Therefore, for me, more important than the State is society, more important than any government is the Action of Citizenship. This is my creed today. Between the president and the citizen, I side with the citizen... I don't want the State on the plateau, but on the plains. I don't want the president, but the citizen... We are the ones who decide our future every day, hour, minute of a continuous political action that never ends.... Although I don't believe I will live much longer [he died exactly three years later], the fact is that I act as if life doesn't end with an election. For me, the election is important, but history will not be built by the State... I believe in citizenship and therefore my notion of time is different" (Herbert José de Souza, Option for Society, Jornal do Brasil, August 18, 1994).

On the same day I wrote: "I am in total agreement with your article... I would endorse it without hesitation... 'Option for society' your phrase is perfect... Your old companion of generation and dreams, who cares for you very much."

Today we have this instrument: through voting we can elect our representatives, trying to improve a failing parliament. Each election is, in a way, a personal judgment. And we will be judged by our choices.

But democracy is not limited to an election. The right to choose is permanent, in a demanding participatory democracy.

On the seventh day, God withdrew from history and handed it over – a terrible burden – to each one of us.