The passing away of don Giacomo Tantardini

The editorial office ofthe monthly magazine 30Days in the Church and in the world, directed by Giulio Andreotti, announces the death of Don Giacomo Tantardini, which occurred on the evening of Thursday 19 April 2012, in Rome. A priest, the soul of our magazine along with Senator Andreotti who has directed it since 1993, Don Giacomo Tantardini was born in Barzio (Lecco) on 27 March 1946. Baptized on 31March of that year, he was confirmed by Blessed Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster on 7 July 1953 and received his First Communion on 27 May 1954. He studied theology at the Theological Faculty of the Milan Seminary of Venegono. He met Don Luigi Giussani and was ordained a priest by Cardinal Giovanni Colombo, Archbishop of Milan, on 27 June 1970. In the early ’seventies he obtained the Licentiate in Canon Law from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He carried out his pastoral work, especially among students of the University of Rome. Incorporated into the diocese of Rome, he was pastor of St Margaret Mary Alacoque at Tor Vergata and chaplain at the University of Tor Vergata from 1983 to 1997. He taught at the Free University of St Pius V in Rome, at the University of Padua and at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St Bonaventure – the Seraphicum – in Rome.

In the early’eighties, at the request of young people who were converting to Christianity, he gathered in a small booklet the simplest prayers of the Christian life and everything that helps make a good confession. The little booklet entitled Who prays is saved, translated into the major languages​​, is distributed in hundreds of thousands of copies throughout the world. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote the presentation on 18 February 2005.