(LifeSiteNews) — Here in Argentina July 20th has been celebrated as Friendship Day for some years now. The initiative was born of Masonic inspiration, in the name of “universal brotherhood” and in recognition of man’s arrival on the moon on that date in 1969. In reality Friendship Day should be celebrated on January 2nd, which commemorates St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who studied together in Athens and shared a deep friendship in the Lord.
The current phenomenon of social media is multiplying cases of “virtual” friendships—that is, not real, not true. Greek and Roman philosophers understood and explained the profoundly human nature of friendship. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, dedicated a chapter to friendship that has been the source of many subsequent treatises. Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote a short book called De amicitia in which he expresses that “true friendship is based on virtue, since only the virtuous can love one another selflessly, without seeking profit or pleasure.”
This means friendship exists between good people seeking the good of the other. Beyond that there is no true friendship, because it is a selfless love that implies absolute trust, loyalty, generosity, and, at least for a time, personal encounter. It is worth comparing this reality to the sexual license that is shamelessly flaunted today.
Cicero also said that friendship was also “a perfect agreement in all things divine and human, with benevolence and affection.” It is an agreement on the fundamentals – how to live and die well – and everything else is ordered according to that foundation. Friendship is especially evident when one of the friends is enduring a misfortune. Seneca, for his part, also wrote a work called De amicitia.
St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition is complete and perfect. He says, in Latin, that friendship is “amor mutuae benevolentiae, fundatus in aliqua communicatione.” It is, therefore, a mutual love that desires the good, and a personal encounter in which one enjoys what is common. It is not something “virtual,” but a virtuous, fully human reality, not identified with mere attraction. Personal encounter is the key to the exercise of friendship. This is what is missing in so-called “virtual friendships,” which are temporary, circumstantial realities.
Friendship is fostered in the family by first instilling in children respect for all, and they too learn it by perceiving the love that parents extend to one another.
There is also a friendship with God; the Church is the community of God’s friends, even if they are geographically separated. Christian friendship is exercised whenever this personal encounter takes place. The Church must still expand into many nations where it is barely represented, according to Jesus’ command to his apostles: go throughout the world and make disciples of all peoples. Then the divine-human phenomenon of friendship will multiply.
In short: it is not a matter of “virtual” friendship, but of virtue. Of love.
+ Héctor Aguer
Archbishop Emeritus of La Plata
Buenos Aires, Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene
