EDITORIAL
from issue no. 10 - 2010
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Universality and romanity
Rome is a universal city. I may seem partial because I was born and live here, but that is not the reason that pushes me into being, allow me the expression, “a fan of Rome”. There is something universal that one breathes here in Rome, without which it’s impossible to judge the rest of the world properly
Giulio Andreotti
St Peter’s Basilica
Rome is a universal city. I may seem partial because I was born and live here, but that is not the reason that pushes me into being, allow me the expression, “a fan of Rome”. There is something universal that one breathes here in Rome, without which it’s impossible to judge the rest of the world properly. And if we lose the spirit, winged perhaps, of universality, we become only gossip and never become history.
I wouldn’t want to seem biased and I’ve never liked autarchy, but Rome is Rome and exerts an influence not to be underestimated, especially for those countries for which tradition is a value, unlike others that think of looking only and continuously to the future, convinced that they live forever in the year zero.
Universality also means that the Roman Church never feels itself a faction, a party, but conceives itself as Church in its wholeness and enjoys the perpetual light of its own most particular spiritual origin and destination.
One of the ever-present marks, now somewhat under-estimated, of the universality of the Church are the foreign ecclesiastical colleges in Rome. Very different among themselves in terms of history and characteristics, but with a common denominator: that of ensuring that in every diocese in the world there be someone who knows the meaning of the universality of Rome and its centrality in the Church, not merely through book-learning, but because he has lived it and lives it as a network of relationships, friendships, experiences and swapping of knowledge. Moreover, the ecclesiastical colleges in Rome are an essential element in the greatness of Rome: sometimes the various parts of the city where these colleges are located take on a crucial value from the presence of the colleges themselves. If, for example, there were no French College in Santa Chiara, the square would not be the same.
The ecclesiastical college I know best is the Almo Collegio Capranica: from the days of my childhood, when I attended the parish of Piazza Capranica, Santa Maria in Aquiro, and older pupils of the Capranica came to teach catechism to us children. That is why the Collegio and the chapel on the first floor, dedicated to St Agnes, remain in my heart as something unique.
However, we as Roman Catholics must be grateful for the character of universality, of reference point, that our city also has through the foreign ecclesiastical colleges. And that is why we at 30Days continue occasionally to pay attention to them in articles and interviews.
Another thought about the Consistory of 20 November: there were no new cardinals in dioceses where there is already a cardinal who is still sufficiently young to vote in a possible conclave. This, too, is one of the aspects of the universality of the Church, whereby one is always careful not to stress one point at the expense of others. Apart from the material problems that nominating a second cardinal voter would cause in a diocese, there is always this concern in the Church to ensure that it is clear that the cardinals belong to the whole Church and are not just representatives of the local church from which they come. The sum of their personalities also, so different from one another, takes on a meaning of universal message that is something incomparable. This is why we must experience the consistory, today as in the past, as an opening of horizons.
