End of the journey for "Limit", a journal of integral Christian ecology

After seven years, the Catholic quarterly magazine “Limite” will release its last issue on Thursday, October 27. The end of an intellectual adventure which tried to raise awareness and make Christians of all persuasions reflect on integral ecology. 

The 27th issue of the Limit review which will be released this week will be the last. Unique in its genre, Limite is a review of integral ecology which is primarily intended for Christians.

“We are part of a tradition, that of political ecology and the militant, sometimes satirical press. Our style, journalistic, literary, artistic, humorous, has contributed to giving the French press a radically new intellectual object”, writes the director of the publication, Paul Piccarreta in his latest editorial.

"Simone Weil, Bernard Charbonneau, Georges Bernanos, Jacques Ellul, Dorothy Day, Ivan Illich, Charles Péguy", these are the personalities he cites as a model. But above all, Pope Francis, who by publishing Laudato Si at the time of the magazine's launch "confirmed" their intuition.

“Thus, we want to remain like 'the François generation', the generation of a Roman pope and anti-globalizationist, who came from South America to wake up Europe, greener than the ecologists. »

For seven years, their objective has been to bring together Christians of different political sensitivities around ecology and to "redesign divisions on new bases: a frontal critique of technological capitalism coupled with a primary attention for the poorest and excluded from our society.

All based on the Gospels that Paul Piccarreta describes as “a very good guide to political action”.

“It all started with them, for us. It all begins with the Gospels. »

Another peculiarity of Limite is that it is a magazine without advertising, subsidies or shareholders which has managed to have more than two thousand subscribers and several thousand occasional readers. During this great adventure, nearly 80 copies were sold.

Several reasons were cited to explain the end of the review. A spiritual reason first, "we are reaching our limits" believes Paul Piccarreta.

The second is material. Fewer and fewer readers and subscribers, the end of the paper press precipitated by the Covid, the "vertiginous" increase in the cost of paper... are all reasons mentioned. In the columns of Libération, the director of the publication also indicates that “Limite is first and foremost an intellectual adventure. Like any adventure, it had a beginning, now it has an end.

Still in Liberation, he also evokes political reasons. “Dialogue has become much more difficult. More and more, this work of unity that we sought to do has been parasitized by societal subjects”, he explains, considering that the stop of the review is also a “political gesture”. "We show a photograph of the situation, an inventory of the forces present".

It is true that Limit has caused division. The “Bolcho-Cathos”, Christian anarchists, who rely on traditions marked on the left while attacking bioethical subjects, from euthanasia to surrogacy, have destabilized many commentators over the years.

While the number that will be released on Thursday marks the end of the adventure, Limite's final editorial nevertheless affirms that “what has appeared will not disappear”.

“There will be a before and after Limite. It is time to tell you that we have reached ours, that we are entering a maturity that calls us elsewhere. That we want to become this grain of wheat of the Gospel, which must die in order to give life. »

Camille Westphal Perrier