The article by Doniglio Luigi, a student of the Alphonsian Academy, published on the Alphonsian Academy Blog . The series on the keywords of the Jubilee 2025 continues with this post , conceived in a dialogic form: a first intervention by a Professor of the Alphonsian Academy is followed by a second contribution written by a student. Third keyword: Hope – Post 2/2.
Hope is no longer a virtue, but an ancient vice that no one can ever completely shake off. Hope is a kind of congenital defect that lasts until death, becoming dangerous when it materializes in a life survived in the passive waiting for something new to happen under the sun, and proving to be salvific when it transforms into the capacity for resilience and the engine of change.
Overall, this is the idea, taken from Giorgio Scerbanenco (1911-1969), a journalist and writer of Ukrainian origin, considered the father of Italian noir , which is the basis of Il vizio della speranza (2018), a dark fable by Neapolitan director Edoardo De Angelis, an example of the refiguration of hope in contemporary cinema [1] .
Maria, the protagonist, seems to be immune to this vitium that risks weakening the will. Saved from the waters of the Volturno at the age of six, where she had been thrown by a stranger like a crumpled plastic bottle after having brutally torn the veil of innocence, she is now a woman who cannot have children, broken inside, who takes care of the girls disfigured “for an hour of love” along the banks of the river, under the management of the stingy madame zi’ Mari’. Sometimes unexpected events happen, such as unexpected pregnancies, but the problem is quickly solved: the newborns are sold to couples who desperately want to become parents, or worse still, their organs are removed and trafficked.
Maria does not live, she survives. A thread holds her life hanging, the same one that connects all the castaways in history [2] . Trapped along the coast that joins Caserta and Naples, she crosses time without dreams and without desires, one day after another, until something unexpected, something miraculous happens. A flash of light mends her tears. She delicately touches her belly: it is swollen, now it is pregnant with hope. What to do? She does not want to give up the life that is growing inside her. Everything is at stake; you have to dare. She runs away. Zi’ Mari’ tries to dissuade her: «Freedom is bullshit. An empty field, with nothing, slavery is so beautiful with its rules, punishments, rewards» [3] . It will be Carlo Pengue, the man who pulled her from the waters as a child, who will once again give her the hope of a new life.
Hope is not a vice, but remains a virtue, and a theological virtue. Faith, charity, and hope clothe us like the garments (habitus) of the new life in Christ: “Put on faith and charity, with hope as a helmet” (1 Thess 5:8). For an all-round ethical commitment, we must be moved by the greatest hope: “we toil and strive because we hope in the living God” (1 Tim 4:10).
The imaginary story of Mary helps us to highlight two real aspects of hope: it is the “midwife of the new” [4] and the “flywheel of freedom” [5] . Professor Roberto Massaro has already wisely highlighted in the previous post the connection between the Jubilee experience, the theological virtue of hope and the Christian commitment to the integral liberation of man, so we will add nothing else [6] .
We simply want to highlight that what is striking about this secular representation of hope is that even a person like Mary, completely immersed in a “structure of sin”, in a moment of lucidity, reanimated by the hope of a new life and of a new life, manages to orient her freedom towards good, especially when she finds allies along the paths of good. It is truly true that we hope together! Of course, the director attributes all this to a vice, not to a virtue, and as Pope Francis reminds us, “virtue is something else”, being “a habitus of freedom” [7] , “a habitual and firm disposition to do good” ( CCC, n. 1879). And even more, in the Catholic perspective, hope is a theological virtue, that is, it comes from God (a Deo) and is directed to God (ad Deum), who is the sole and supreme Good from which every other good comes (cf. Mk 10:18). However, this does not prevent us from seeing stories like this, which sometimes appear on the screen and find a correspondence in reality [8] , being, in their own way, a sign of hope and, in particular, an invitation not to stop seeking, even today, the way to “give an account of the hope that is in us” ( 1Pt 3:15). Indeed, let us not forget that “we toil and strive because we hope in the living God” (1Tim 4:10).
The fourth keyword:
[1] The idea of investigating the way in which cinema allows us to refigure hope starts from here: DE Viganò – G. Scarafile, L’adesso del domani. Refigurations of hope in modern and contemporary cinema, Effatà, Cantalupa (TO) 2007.
[2] Cf. S. Bongiovanni – S. Tanzarella (eds.), With all the shipwrecked people of history. Theology after “Veritatis Gaudium” in the Context of the Mediterranean, Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, Trapani 2019.
[3] E. De Angelis, The Vice of Hope (Blue Roads), Mondadori, Milan 2018, 143.
[4] B.-C. Han, Against the Society of Anguish. Hope and Revolution (Stile Libero Extra), Einaudi, Turin 2025, 36.
[5] Cf. M. Cozzoli, Theological Ethics. Faith, Charity, Hope, San Paolo, Cinisello Balsamo 2010, 386.
[6] We suggest only reading: J. Alfaro, Christian Hope, and the Liberation of Man, (Biblioteca di Teologia Contemporanea/10), Queriniana, Brescia 19853.
[7] Francis, Vices, and Virtues. The Spiritual Struggle, Paoline, Milan 2024, 93.
[8] Cf. Diocese of Aversa Caritas, TrattaMi. Path of accompaniment and awareness of trafficking (Observatory of Poverty and Resources/Dossier 2021), Tipografia Bianco, Aversa 2021. Online resource: https://caritasaversa.it/osservatorio/
