The Catholics and Public Life conference held this past weekend in Bilbao began with a question that permeated every presentation and every hallway conversation: Where is the world headed without God? It’s not a theoretical question. It’s a question that resonates in culture, politics, and everyday life. And it was also the guiding thread of a few intense days that invited participants to look at reality without fear and with hope.

One of the first speakers recalled an idea as simple as it was illuminating: ideology consists of taking a part of reality and turning it into the whole. When human beings absolutize a part, they end up losing sight of the complete truth. And, in that attempt to quench the thirst for God that dwells in the human heart, they end up accepting lies as if they were a solution. But the thirst remains.

From this arises one of the most dramatic consequences of our time: when man decides to kill God, he ends up killing each other. Recent history offers too many examples.

In that context, journalist Jesús Colina spoke, presenting the attendees with a clear challenge: we cannot simply reproduce what we have experienced until now. We are facing a new era and, therefore, a new challenge. With a vivid and accurate image, he explained that the task of evangelization today is not about winning over a young woman, but about convincing a divorced woman to return to her former marriage. In other words, it is about speaking again to men who once knew God and yet have drifted away from Him.

In this regard, he also recalled a statement by Benedict XVI: civilizations do not die by murder, but by suicide. They destroy themselves from within when they lose the convictions that sustain them. But alongside this warning, hope also emerges: there are always creative minorities capable of regenerating social life.

One of these creative minorities is undoubtedly the Catholic Association of Propagandists, the driving force behind these events. Minorities that do not seek power or prominence, but rather to sow seeds.

Because, as Colina reminded us on several occasions, Christianity is not an ideology or a set of rules: it is an encounter with a living Person in the intimacy of the heart. And that experience is never lived in isolation. Christians are called to walk together in community.

Following Colina’s intervention came a very in-depth lecture by José María Alsina, rector of the Abat Oliba CEU University, who offered a dense and luminous reflection on the cultural mission of Christians at the present time.

Saturday’s session continued with a round table presented by Antonio Girbau, with the participation of Juan Manuel Sinde, president of the Arizmendiarrieta Foundation, heir to the spirit of José María Arizmendiarrieta, promoter of the cooperative experience of the Mondragón Corporation, and Ramón J. Fonte, president of His Way at Work (HWAW).

The presentations showed how faith can also permeate the world of business and work.

In his speech, Fonte encouraged large or small companies —wherever there is someone with a desire to introduce God into the management of the company— to learn about and join His Way at Work, an initiative that seeks to accompany entrepreneurs and management teams on this path of integrating faith and work.

The event also had moments of beauty and respite. Soprano Sara Pardo gave a lyrical recital that filled the hall with beauty.

Later came one of the most vibrant moments with the intervention of Dominican friar Marcos, known for his appearance on MasterChef. His warmth and enthusiasm moved the audience, inviting them to heal wounds and live their faith with joy.

The after-dinner conversation was marked by Diego Blanco’s lecture, in which he spoke about the Apocalypse from a profoundly hopeful perspective. He introduced the concept of eucatastrophe, an expression coined by J.R.R. Tolkien to describe that moment in great stories when all seems lost… just before the final triumph erupts. This idea, applied to the history of salvation, reminds us that even in the darkest moments, God continues to write the final outcome.

Then came the testimony of Mar Dorrio, who brought all these reflections to the realm of the everyday, where faith is lived in the first person: from the home, when the front door closes and real life begins.

The conference concluded with a look to the future. Antonio Perteguer Muñoz presented ChatLumen AI, an artificial intelligence platform developed from the faith and morals of the Church.

Perhaps therein lies one of the keys to what happened in Bilbao. The creative minorities Colina spoke of are embodied today in the Catholic Association of Propagandists, which with each event it organizes in a city sows something new.

They work like that constant, penetrating drizzle of the north: a fine rain that soaks in little by little.

City after city, meeting after meeting, his work transforms places that, when the day is over, are never exactly the same again.