Whatever the Answer May Be.
Julián Carrón - The Human Person at the Center of the Ultimate Questions
A Dialogue with Fr. Julián Carrón Introduction by Andrea Moro and Matteo Greco Pavia, November 27, 2025
Matteo Greco: Let’s begin with a greeting from Bishop Sanguineti.
Bishop Corrado Sanguineti: First, I want to greet Fr. Julián Carrón, a dear friend. I thank him for accepting this invitation to the first meeting promoted by the Pastoral Care of Culture of our Diocese. I also thank Andrea Moro and Matteo Greco for leading us.
The theme Fr. Julián will help us explore is striking: placing the human question at the center—that radical search for meaning that gives life its direction. I believe this is the question.
I recently read a startling survey stating that over 40% of adolescents in Europe consider life meaningless. This is the real educational crisis. A meaningless life is a life at the mercy of nothingness, and the signs are visible to everyone. Therefore, rediscovering the depth of this question—this need that cannot be erased from the heart and demands, at the very least, a tentative answer—is fundamental. It is what allows a human being to breathe. I look forward to listening to what emerges from this evening’s Event. Thank you.
Andrea Moro: If you asked me what posture defines happiness in my life, I would say: the openness to the unexpected. Among all unexpected things, the encounter between people is the most incisive.
There is an unexpected factor connecting this evening to an encounter that happened years ago—I believe in 1994. In that encounter with Pierluigi Colognesi (Pigi)—I’m moved seeing him here in the room—a friendship was born that has never been suspended. Pigi gave me a book, The Meaning of God and Modern Man. I don’t know if you remember the dedication, Pigi: "From this book, I understood that Christianity is not a treatise."
Tonight is a double surprise. First, that gift from years ago brought us here, as our title comes from that very book. The second unexpected encounter was with Matteo Greco. I heard Matteo leading a group of university students and was struck by his capacity to value any experience. That is why I am here: because of two unexpected events I accepted into my heart.
This assembly—each of you—is unexpected. But nothing compares to what binds us together: the greatest unexpected Event in history, the birth of Christ.
Now, I will read the passage from Giussani that changed my life. It opens the book The Religious Sense. Giussani writes:
The Heart of the Matter "At what level of our inner dynamics does the religious sense reside? There are questions that attach themselves to the very root of our being: What is worth living for? What is the meaning of Reality? What is the meaning of existence? Leopardi created a symbol of this deep layer of our vitality in the 'wandering shepherd' who speaks to the moon:
'Startled from sleep by you / Silent star of the desert sky... / I sit here with my flock / And watch the stars burning in the sky / And ask myself: / What are these lights? / What is this infinite air, this deep infinite sky? / What does this immense solitude mean? / And who am I?'
The religious sense lies exactly at the level of those questions. More precisely, the religious sense arises when a very important adjective emerges: What is the exhaustive meaning of existence? What is the ultimate meaning of Reality? What is ultimately worth living for?"
And here came my personal revelation: "The content of the religious sense coincides with these questions and with any answer to these questions."
Fr. Julián, I ask for your thoughts on this.
Fr. Julián Carrón: First, dear Andrea, I want to understand why this hit you, so I can respond from experience. When you contacted me, I wondered: Why were you struck by "any answer"? Did you think it meant there is no predetermined answer, or that every answer is equally valid?
Moro: As happened in high school, they changed the subject! No, you’re right. Look, I have no authority to speak...
Carrón: You have all the authority because this lies at the deepest level of the "I." If you didn't have authority, you wouldn't have caught that phrase.
Moro: Two things struck me. It says "any answer," but it doesn’t say any answer is exhaustive. That’s the point.
Carrón: Perfect. It’s not just any answer that works. This is crucial.
When I saw the title, I asked myself what Giussani meant. He means that ultimately, these questions—the religious sense—constitute our human fabric. They are so dense they define the person. The "wandering shepherd" documents this: facing Reality, questions emerge. And not just any questions.
Giussani wrote in a different context, but today we see this with even greater awareness. Charles Taylor, who studied secularization deeply, affirms this. It seems now that "any answer" is the same because, in our multicultural context, there is no dominant tradition leading a person to the answers. What we share now are not answers, but questions. Taylor, a Canadian unfamiliar with Giussani, calls us a society of "seekers." The urgency hasn't disappeared; we face a need for meaning that is, in some ways, even more radical.
Previously, a person was carried along by a social current—like a treadmill. That’s gone. Parents feel it with children; teachers with students. But precisely because the dominant tradition has faded, the irreducibility of the person emerges with greater force.
The more people achieve, the more they feel the urgency. A successful entrepreneur recently told me he wakes up at night asking, "So what?" Think of Billie Eilish’s song, "What Was I Made For?" People are surprised by questions they didn't think were urgent.
I told a group of students recently: "The real crisis doesn't begin with failure; it starts with success." When you succeed and it’s not enough... then you’re in trouble. These questions don't arise in a retreat; they bubble up from the depths of life, from the "I" grappling with Reality. This is the value of our time. We can truly understand that the religious sense coincides with these questions.
Giussani says we cannot live five minutes without affirming a reason for those five minutes. That is why he says "any answer." We don't manufacture these questions; they are provoked by life. We don't manufacture the need for a reason to get out of bed. Everyone is already giving an answer.
"Whatever principle or value is put forward as an answer," Giussani writes, "is a religiosity that expresses itself... a 'god' that asserts itself." The person is affirming a quid—a something—that is the ultimate meaning. It might be money, career, power. But in the act of living, the person surprises themselves by affirming something as ultimate. In this sense, "any answer" is true as an attempt, true as a documentation of this structural need.
But here is the second point: We do not trigger these questions ourselves. As Dostoevsky said, "The ant knows the formula of the anthill... but man does not know his formula." We need to be provoked.
Think of Matt Damon. He won an Oscar at 27 and couldn't sleep. He realized, "I could have lived to be 90 waiting for this. I'm lucky because at 27 I know an Oscar doesn't fill the void." What woke him up? Success.
We have received everything. We have a nature we cannot manipulate. We receive input from Reality that triggers an inevitable thirst for meaning. This makes life fascinating for those who refuse to settle, but heavy for those who want "peace of mind."
I don't think success gives you peace, Andrea. You are no more at peace now than years ago. The more life goes on, the more urgent the questions become. And I say: Thank God. Otherwise, we would be flat.
Moro: I wrote a note: "Woe to the satisfied." If you are satisfied, you stop asking. We are fortunate to recognize we are not exhaustive. Giussani italicizes exhaustive meaning. He is asking: What is the final question? The only experience we have is that we are not satisfied. We must seek an answer that is not exhausted in "having," but in Someone else.
Carrón: How is it possible to find an answer that constantly reawakens the search?
The paradox is that many say, "We can't find an answer, so why keep looking?" But what if it were the other way around? What if I cannot stop searching precisely because the answer is exhaustive?
Look at human experience: the more you love someone, the more you miss them. If you fall in love and don't think of them the next morning, you haven't fallen in love! You miss them because they are the person who makes you most yourself.
I like a line from a Guccini song: "I am not myself when you are not there / And I am left alone with my thoughts." When the Presence that defines me is missing, I am invaded by my own thoughts. The problem is: Who can we say this to? Who lasts?
To continue searching, that Presence must remain decisive. We often think the answer is something that, once found, ends the search. But if the water responds to my unquenchable thirst, I want to drink again and again!
This is why Jesus came. He did not come to flatten desire. If He did, He would be like worldly power. Power’s only goal is to flatten desire; nothing threatens power more than a person with desires. The first struggle against power is to desire.
If Christ didn't reawaken this in me, He wouldn't interest me. I want to wake up every morning desiring to find Him again because of the fullness I experienced yesterday.
Matteo Greco: I want to share a small experience. One evening, tired after a long day, I lay in bed watching YouTube videos. I realized I was doing it to numb the impatience and dissatisfaction of the day. How is it possible to love this "religious sense," this restlessness, rather than trying to sedate it?
Carrón: Because this urgency is your greatest resource. This longing is the tool the Mystery placed within you to seek Him.
No one spoke like Jesus: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst." Why? Because only they will be satisfied. He asked: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses himself?"
Look at the multiplication of the loaves. Jesus satisfies their hunger, but He doesn't stop there. When they want to make Him king because their bellies are full, He says: "Man does not live on bread alone." He looks at them with tenderness. He says, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man... you will not have life in you." He raises the bar to true life. And everyone abandons Him.
Moro: Sometimes it seems Christians don't take concrete needs seriously—hunger, thirst. But it's not that we ignore them; we know they aren't exhaustive. There is always another unexpected event: death. It’s hard to communicate this. Death isn't fashionable. But if you want a comprehensive answer, you must face it.
Steve Jobs’s slogan "Stay hungry" grasped the need to never feel satisfied. But without an answer, it’s just a slogan. When you interact with non-Christians, what "hook" do you use?
Carrón: You have to intercept their need. Jesus started there: "I came not for the healthy, but for the sick."
Think of the ten lepers. All were healed, but only one returned. Only one understood the significance of the Event. The others thought solving leprosy solved life. The tenth leper realized that the One who healed him could satisfy his structural thirst for meaning.
Peter understood this too. When Jesus asks, "Do you also want to leave?" Peter replies, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" He didn't say, "We’re staying because we’re good people." He realized that without Jesus, he would lose himself.
If we don't understand the nature of our "I"—that we cannot be satisfied with anything less than Everything—we will settle. We discover our nature when life shows us that success isn't enough. The more life urges us, the more we find a single Companion up to the task: Jesus.
If Christianity is not lived as an attraction that cannot be ignored, it becomes, as von Balthasar said, "a mechanism that no longer captivates anyone."
Greco: Julián, we started with questions that animate us all. You spoke of an answer that seems unattainable. The image we chose for tonight was a bridge. I want to ask about this gap.
Carrón: It is unattainable! We are made for something beyond our capacity.
The Greeks were amazed by this. They thought every being had the resources to achieve its end. But they saw that man’s desire went beyond his natural limits. They called it hubris, madness. They didn't understand the "structural disproportion" Giussani speaks of—the paradox of being fragile yet feeling infinite.
St. Augustine nailed it: "Nothing less than You is enough for blissful peace."
Is any answer valid? No. Because a reduction of Christianity to ethics or discourse doesn't "grab" us. We need a Presence adequate to our nature. Wittgenstein said: "I fix my gaze on earthly things: unless ‘God’ visits me."
Nothing convinces us except being "taken" by something that makes life truly life. That is the bridge.
Moro: That reminds me of Rita Levi Montalcini: "Insects have been the same for 270 million years because their brains were perfect... we are not."
Carrón: Animals are perfect instinctive systems. Imperfection is what makes a person develop.
The great gift the Mystery gives us is this space of freedom. It amazes people: "How can salvation depend on chance? On an encounter?" But the unexpected is the only hope.
Who will intercept the unexpected when it happens? Those not satisfied with less than the answer to the questions the Mystery throws at us.
Greco: We didn't plan this, but your paraphrase of Montale—"the unexpected is the only hope"—leads to our conclusion. We wish for this unexpected encounter to change our lives.
We chose a text from Giussani where he speaks of bridges:
"Imagine the world as an immense plain... countless people busy building bridges to connect the earth and the sky. A man arrives... and shouts, 'Stop!' He says, 'You are great and noble... but it is not possible for you to build the road to the ultimate Mystery. Abandon your projects... follow me, I will build the bridge: I am Destiny.' Most would say, 'He's crazy,' and go back to work. Only a few do not take their eyes off him... they approach him and follow him."
We are not faced with a theoretical problem, but a historical one. The question is not, "Is this reasonable?" but, "Is it true? Did it happen?"
We’ll close with a song by Demi Lovato, Anyone, which speaks of this cry.
Moro: Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Pigi, for that gift. Thank you, Julián, for coming here.
