of human existence." Preaching In November 2011, Cardinal Ravasi said preaching in churches had become formulaic and boring, such that it risked becoming "irrelevant". He said that "The advent of televised and computerised information requires us to be compelling and trenchant, to cut to the heart of the matter, resort to narratives and colour". He added that "We need to remember that communicating faith doesn't just take place through sermons. It can be achieved through the 140 characters of a Twitter message." Contemporary culture Ravasi sprinkles his speeches and communications with references to secular culture. Via his Twitter account he has shared, as well as prayers and Bible passages, observations on life and faith from Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Buddha, Camus, Mark Twain and others. He announced his departure for the U.S. saying: "Departing for the land of Dickinson, Poe, Whitman, Melville, Twain, Hemingway, Kerouac, F. O’Connor, Salinger, Roth, Bellow, Updike." In 2013 and 2016 he commemorated the deaths of musical artists Lou Reed and David Bowie, quoting "Perfect Day" and "Space Oddity", respectively. Evolution In 2008, he said, "I want to affirm, as an a priori, the compatibility of the theory of evolution with the message of the Bible and the Church's theology." He also noted that neither Charles Darwin nor his work On the Origin of Species had ever been condemned by the Church. Archeology Ravasi believes that archeology is a crucial undertaking in understanding the world. He said in a 2015 interview that "archeology is very important in my view because it permits us to understand that man did not start from zero, but is always building upon his patrimony, his heritage". Religious liberty In 2013, Ravasi delivered an address to the TED conference held in Rome in which he said that religious liberty was a fundamental dimension of the human person that had to be respected. However, the cardinal highlighted that "in modern democratic countries there are also very subtle methods for impinging on religious liberty". Ravasi said that religious liberty was an absolute necessity, particularly in a globalized world "where cultures are intermingled and adherents of different religions are constrained to live side by side". Bearing that point in mind, according to Ravasi, religious tolerance was an imperative that modern society imposed for "congenial living and progress". Ravasi has criticized those governments around the world that seek to impede or restrict religious freedoms and has suggested