Widow of writer: 'our agnosticism brings us nearer to God'

(by Francesca Ambrogetti) (ANSA) - Buenos Aires, April 16 - Many years ago, the celebrated Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges met with Jorge Mario Bergoglio - today, Pope Francis - an event that many recall with fondness. "During the years in which Borges was a professor of literature, Bergoglio invited him to give a lesson to high school students where he taught and asked (Borges) to write a prologue to a book of their stories," recalled the widow of Argentina's leading writer, Maria Kodama. Bergoglio is a great admirer of the author's work, The Aleph, and at a certain point, many years ago, the lives of the two crossed paths. This fact is well known, but in Buenos Aires, it again became a topic of conversation after a presentation of the Courtyard of Gentiles, a meeting place between worshippers of different religions and non-believers, inspired by Benedict XVI and supported by Pope Francis. "With Borges, one spoke often of the fact that perhaps our agnosticism brings us closer to God, if he existed, because we took a parallel path for trying to understand in the only impossible way: reason," Kodama remembered in a letter during the presentation of the event, scheduled in November both in Buenos Aires and in Cordoba, where round tables, debates, seminars, shows and exhibits will take place. Echoing the long years spent with Borges, Kodama also remembered her first meeting with the pope last year in which she gave him the complete works of the writer. "As I waited to introduce myself, I remembered the poetry in which Borges said 'we had a homeland and we lost it'," she recalled. "I said to myself that perhaps faith, or a religion, represents the homeland of the soul, a homeland that we had, because we were both baptized and then, as agnostics, we lost it". Kodama did not hide her own satisfaction in knowing that both the pope and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontificate Council of Culture promoting the event, are readers of Borges as well as supporters, among other things, of the idea of giving his work prominence, in particular to numerous Borges-influenced writings that tackle the theme of transcendence. http://popefrancisnewsapp.com/

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Borges' widow recalls highschool meeting with pope