30giorni

A friendship that blossomed under the sign of St Augustine

by Pietro Calogero

He greeted me, Don Giacomo, with a shy caress of the eyes and a slight childish blush when on 1 April 2003 I was introduced to him in the Aula Magna of the University of Padua, just before he started the third lesson of the cycle of conferences devoted to the relevance of St Augustine.

The hall was full of young people waiting on his word. Don Giacomo’s face was also young, on which the watercolor hues of the skin formed a magical weave, of purple and amber. Even his voice was attuned to the color, a very mobile and refined distillate of an inexhaustible source of ideas.

The reading and comment on the Augustinian texts on grace and on the beauty of the Christian faith echoed in the auditorium for about an hour. In my imagination the figure of Don Giacomo grew enormously and when, at the end of the lecture, he asked me to prepare a contribution for the next lesson I did not feel, though conscious of my limitations, I could deny him that.

So it was that on 20 May 2003, introducing in the same auditorium the fourth lecture to be given by Don Giacomo, I dealt with the subject of earthly justice in St Augustine and I illustrated its relevance especially in its relations with politics.

Before addressing the arguments prepared for the lecture, dealing with a completely different subject, Don Giacomo, wanted to intervene on the Augustinian conception of justice.

I confess that I listened with admiring wonder at his ability to achieve in a very short time an exalted and complete summary of the topic just treated.

A sign, I thought, of genuine speculative talent and profound knowledge of the thought of the Bishop of Hippo which, having matured at the culmination of a process of identification with the latter, it is necessary that I recall it here in its essential features.

Don Giacomo said, “I was especially struck by three things which the Attorney indicated to us, which seem to me profoundly Augustinian and profoundly relevant. The first is the suggestion that justice in the human sense, whose obligation it is to give each his own, is a bonum of the earthly city, is a good thing of that city that Augustine describes with the realism highlighted in the episode of the encounter of the Emperor Alexander the Great with the pirate” (commenting on which he asks: “Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?”, thus setting justice aside, what would the kingdoms be reduced to if not to large bands of robbers?).

“The second thing that particularly struck me”, continued Don Giacomo, “is that this justice has as its basis human nature, the human person. Augustine knows that original sin wounds human nature as such. Yet he defends human nature affirming that no sin is such that it can destroy extrema vestigia naturae, that last threshold of human nature created good and in which habitat veritas, not in the sense that it creates truth but in the sense that in human nature there is the possibility of recognizing the truth, there is the possibility of recognizing beauty, there is the possibility of recognizing the good. A human nature in which, even though wounded by original sin, the image of the Creator is not destroyed. A human nature in which the openness to beauty, truth, goodness, justice remains. A wounded human nature, yet capax Dei”.

“The last thing for which I’m really grateful to the Attorney”, concluded Don Giacomo, “are the final suggestions about the historicity of human justice and its relativity. I think this is the thing that Augustine places more in evidence, in an original way, also in respect to other emphases also present in Christian philosophy: the historicity and relativity of the justice of the earthly city as compared to that justice that is a free gift of God. But this historicity and this relativity are possibilities of productiveness, are opportunities to improve all historical models without imposing anything on others, they are facilitators of dialogue. Precisely because of this historicity the De civitate Dei is of a continuous immediacy and evidence. Augustine describes with realism things as they are. This realism allows that nothing be imposed and optimizes every positive possibility. This suggestion is what struck me most of the things heard, along with the extensive quotations of Cicero in his dialogue on the res publica.

It is very interesting and relevant that in the concept of man, the concept of the bona naturae, of the goods of nature, Augustine does not emphasise the Neoplatonic tradition, but exalts the Roman tradition of Varro and Cicero. Even at the cultural level this strikes me as really one of the most interesting and relevant things. Augustine, who is normally taken for a Platonic Christian, in regard to the concept of human nature and of the essential goods of human nature values the relativist Roman tradition (I say relativist in the sense that first the Attorney Calogero spoke of historicity and relativity) and not the tradition of Neoplatonism”.

To conclude: a great teacher, Don Giacomo, who was able to reawaken in me by the enchanting force of his culture and the engaging art of communication the old passion for ideas, life experiences, the highest sense of the human and the just of Augustine, landmark figure of the militant Christianity of the early centuries.

And at the same time a friend: a most sensitive friend, forever young, humble, shy, reserved, transparent as the most transparent porcelain manufactured by human hands never was.

Teacher and friend that I frequented tenderly until a few weeks before the great void dug by his unexpected death, and that now, with eyes raised to heaven, I remember with regret.

Venice, 31 May 2012

Pietro Calogero, as a young assistant prosecutor in Treviso, investigated the massacre of Piazza Fontana, discovering the so-called ‘black track’ and exposing the false leads and coverups carried out by elements of the Italian secret services, outlining the subversive project commonly known as the ‘strategy of tension’. In Padua, in the ’seventies, he led the investigation that led to the arrest of the leaders of Workers Autonomy (Negri, Scalzone Piperno), revealing the links between this organization and the Red Brigades. He is currently Attorney General at the Court of Appeal of Venice.

In the wake of the Beatitudes, the witness of Don Giacomo Tantardini

by Cardinal Angelo Sodano

Dear brother bishops and priests, distinguished authorities, relatives and friends of the late Don Giacomo, brothers and sisters in the Lord!

It’s time to pay the last farewell to our dear Don Giacomo Tantardini. He left us quietly on the evening of last Thursday, ending a life wholly oriented towards Christ who had ‘seized’ him, as he said recalling a word used by St Paul in this regard in his letter to the Philippians (Phil 3, 12).

Today we have come in large numbers within the walls of this beautiful Basilica that was so dear to him, to say our goodbyes. An affectionate, grateful farewell. For my part I join willingly with all of you who loved him very much, as is shown by the large crowd that has come today to this temple. Together, dear friends, we will thank the Lord for having given him to us and then we will entrust him to the hands of the Father Who is in Heaven, a Father “rich in mercy” or, to quote the Latin words that were so dear to Don Giacomo, a Father “dives in misericordia” (cf. Eph 2, 4).

Our Te Deum

My brothers in every Mass, we thank the Lord for the gifts He gives us in the course of our lifetime.

Today, in particular, we want to offer up to God a hymn of gratitude for the gift He gave to His Church with the life and works of this great priest.

One day long ago the Good Shepherd had made him hear His mysterious voice telling him: “Come, follow me” (Mt 19, 21) and the generous youth from Barzio, in the land of Lecco, responded generously to that invitation. At the age of twenty-four he became a minister of the Lord and thus started that generous mission, which was to lead him here to Rome, in this Christian Rome that was so dear to him, where he spent with holy ardor the greater part of his 42 years of priesthood. You are all witnesses of his affection and his zeal.

The Acts of the Apostles tell us of Peter and John who after Pentecost preached the word of Christ ‘boldly’. I think that the Greek word used by St Luke (cf. Acts 4, 29), the term parresia (παρρησία), well suits the style followed by Don Giacomo in his apostolate. Parresia is translated by scholars with different words: boldness, courage, bravery, candor, but they are all terms that indicate the inner spirit of our dear departed.

Indeed he seemed to be inspired by the message left by St Augustine to the Christians of Africa: “Without pride, be proud however of the truth”, or in that fine Ciceronian Latin beloved by Don Giacomo “Sine superbia de veritate praesumite” (Contra litteras Petiliani I, 31: PL 43, 259).

For the life of Don Giacomo, we want today to sing our Te Deum of thanksgiving to our Lord.

In the Canticle of the Creatures, St Francis thanked God for ‘Sister Death’. We today want, first of all, to thank the Lord for ‘sister life’, for the life granted to Don Giacomo, the life of nature and especially for the more precious life, which is that of grace!

Our Requiem Mass

Secondly, my brothers, our Eucharist today is also intended as a prayer of intercession. The Christian faith teaches us that nothing less than pure, less than holy enters the presence of God. In fact, the Book of Proverbs in the Holy Scripture tells us that “even the righteous may fall seven times a day” (Prov 24, 16).

For this reason the Church, our Mother and Teacher, has always taught us to offer prayers, and especially the Eucharistic Sacrifice, so that our dead, properly purified, may attain the beatific vision of God (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1032).

The light of faith

My brothers, our celebration of the Eucharist is then completely illuminated by the splendor of these pages of the Word of God, which we have just heard.

In the first reading we heard some words of great hope: “The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God” (Wis 3, 1), and then we sang the responsorial psalm: “Merciful and gracious is the Lord” (Ps 102): a vision of hope.

In the second reading, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans already two thousand years ago, tried by the persecution and martyrdom of so many of their brethren: “Whether we live or die, we are always of the Lord” (Rm 14, 7-9).

The Gospel, then, once again reproposed the message of the Beatitudes to us. It is that grandiose and demanding message, by which our late Don Giacomo was inspired. Because of this we are confident that what Christ promised His disciples will come about for him: “Yours will be the Kingdom of Heaven!”.

The Easter Alleluia

With this vision of faith, we can today take leave of our dear brother, Don Giacomo. At the end of Mass, the liturgy will put a touching song of the ancient Christian tradition on our lips: In Paradisum deducant te Angeli, may the angels accompany you to Paradise!

And today, we’ll also sing this sweet melody, keeping in our hearts the spirit of the Easter Alleluia. “Praise the Lord” is precisely the original meaning of the word “Alleluia” that has been resonating in our churches for two thousand years. Yes, today also we want to praise the Lord! Today and always, we will sing Alleluia!

Conclusion

To Most Holy Mary, to whom our dear Don Giacomo nurtured a filial devotion, we then entrust the blessed soul of him who left us.

The Loreto Litanies, so called because they arose in Loreto, invoke Mary as Ianua Coeli, Gate of Heaven. May she welcome into her loving arms her beloved son and lovingly introduce him to the definitive encounter with Her Son Jesus, in the eternal home in Heaven. And so be it!

Christianity: a simple story

by Don Giacomo Tantardini

Let me start with a verse from a poem by Charles Péguy that summarizes somewhat what we have now heard. Péguy says in one of his poems to the Virgin of Chartres: “They have said much, O Queen of Apostles / We have lost the taste for speeches / we no longer have altars, if not yours / we know nothing more than a simple prayer”.

I believe that when Péguy at the beginning of the century went on a pilgrimage to Chartres to ask for the grace of healing for his children... the children were not baptized: Péguy cohabited, so to say, with a Jewish woman who had refused to baptize the children. So Péguy could never have a Christian marriage and could not receive the sacraments of the Church, and yet I believe that Péguy was the greatest poetic witness of these last centuries, the greatest after Dante. The Lord’s grace is given according to the measure of the gift of Christ, as He wants.

“They have said much, O Queen of Apostles / We have lost the taste for speeches / we no longer have altars, if not yours / we know nothing more than a simple prayer”. But even so I have to talk this evening. So I would like to say just three things that I think are things that the Church’s Tradition, that the simplicity of Tradition (simple prayer recalls the simplicity of Tradition), that the simplicity of the Christian Tradition, especially for Christmas, says again, repeats.

1. There is a dogmatic expression that the modern world, especially in recent decades, the world, that world that is in the Church, especially the world that is in the Church, has tried as if to censor. Instead, nothing of human life is understood and Christianity is not understood if we do not start from here: original sin. Original sin. It is that all men, except Mary, are born with original sin. Nothing is understood of life, nothing is understood – says the last Ecumenical Council of the Church in a very beautiful expression – of human society, if you do not start from here: that men are born evil. As Jesus says: “You who are evil”. “Why do you call me good? Only God is good”. “Si homo non periisset, Filius hominis non venisset”, so St Augustine summarizes the Church’s conscience: if man had not sinned, the Son of man would not have come.

I would like to take the beginning of Alessandro Manzoni’s hymn Il Natale [Christmas]...

Alessandro Manzoni in many ways is not, as it were, a contemporary author, because he describes in his wonderful novel, I promessi sposi [The Betrothed], the Christian condition as already given and therefore does not talk about us, because today that condition no longer exists. Perhaps the most current page of The Betrothed is that which describes the conversion of the Unnamed, when, after that night, he sees the people glad to go and welcome Cardinal Federico and asks himself: “What do all these people have to be happy about?”. This is the most contemporary page. “What do all these people have to be happy about?”. And the curiosity to see why these people are happy arises in his heart. This is the page that describes how one can become a Christian today... Alessandro Manzoni’s ancestors are from my country which is Barzio, a small town above Lecco, and the grandfather of Alessandro Manzoni was called Alessandro because the patron saint of Barzio, as the patron of Bergamo, is Saint Alexander. And I think that also the author of The Betrothed is called Alessandro because of this... Other reasons make him close to me. Although, I repeat, Manzoni in many ways is not relevant, he is certainly not like Péguy.

The hymn ‘Christmas’ begins with the image of that mass of rock that fell from the mountain top and now lies on the bottom of the valley: “There where it fell, immobile / it lies in its indolent imposing mass, / Neither, to change for centuries / nor to see the sun / from its ancient summit / If a friendly force / does not draw it up on high”. It is impossible that the rock that falls from the mountain-top into the valley can see the sun again from the summit, if a friendly force does not take it and carry it back up. “Thus lay the miserable / Child of the first fault”. So lay man, child of the first sin. Like that. “Where the proud neck / could no longer raise itself“. And this I think is the most realistic definition of original sin.

What is original sin? Don Giussani, in the last volume of the series that collects the dialogues in a house of the Memores Domini, says: “What is original sin? What is the pride of original sin? It is the affirmation of oneself before that of reality”. Man sees nothing but himself. Fallen from that height he does not see anything other than himself. The affirmation of himself before that of reality. There is a verse of the hymn that I will read in its entirety because it is so realistic, “Whoever among those born to hate”. Born to hate. Like that. The human condition is like this. A few weeks ago it struck me that a non-Christian, non-Catholic writer, Norberto Bobbio, receiving an award from the University of Stuttgart, quoted Hegel (Hegel master of all, unfortunately, in recent decades), quoted Hegel in one of his few realistic expressions when he says that human history is none other than a great slaughter-house. It’s so. Human history is none other than a great slaughter-house. Human history, St Augustine says, taking the example from Rome, from the history of Rome that was founded by a fratricide, goes from murder to murder. “Whoever among those born to hate”. Born to hate. Not for the creating act. The creation is good. But in fact, for original sin, one is born to hate. And even good things, beautiful things, immediately decay into strangeness. And from this condition of original sin experience can be gained, man gains experience. Great poetry does nothing other than talk of this. To recognize the effects of original sin faith is not necessary, human intelligence is enough. Not to recognize the effects of original sin is a question of non-intelligence, is a question of illusion, is a question of idealism.

“Whoever among those born to hate, / Whoever was the person, / Whoever inaccessible to the Holy One...”. How christian Manzoni is at this moment. “Inaccessible”: to the Holy One whom he cannot reach, to the unknown Holy One, to the Holy One whose face is unknown. And if someone says God exists but does not see Him (St Bernard says in a Breviary reading at Christmas time), after a while, how can he recognize that He exists, if he cannot come to Him, if precipitated to the bottom of the ravine, he cannot arrive to the light of the beginning, to the light of the dawn of the first beginning of creation? How can he say that it exists? “Whoever was the person, / Who to the inaccessible Holy One / Could say: forgive?”. Forgive! “Who to thank, who to curse?”, asked Cesare Pavese in one of the last sentences of his journal. Who to thank, who to curse if the Mystery is there but is inaccessible, is there but without a face, is there but incomprehensible, is there but cannot be known? “Make a new everlasting covenant? / From the infernal victor / To tear away his prey?”.Who could tear his prey away from the devil?

This is the first suggestion: one is born with original sin. And the dogma of the Church says that original sin injures man in naturalibus, in his natural dimensions. It not only makes consistence impossible. For example, one knows that abortion is a sin, but then is inconsistent. But it is not only that. Original sin also prevents in the long run the realization that abortion is a sin, because original sin injures humans in their natural intelligence: because of original sin intelligence as such is itself obfuscated, not only is the will weakened. So even what is natural, what is creaturely, even what is against the heart, against the creaturely gesture, man is clouded in recognizing it. Not that he cannot recognize it, but he is cloudy inside. Reality cannot be understood, the world cannot be understood if we do not start from here. The world we live in cannot be understood, the circumstances in which we are cannot be understood.

2. What remains in this condition? The inaccessible Mystery, which has no face, and man, to whom the light (the light means the surprise of creation, which is good), this light, is no longer familiar. It is no longer cara beltà, no longer dear beauty, the creation, but it is strangeness, enmity, so much so that Cain kills Abel. What is left? The heart remains. The heart is wounded, but the heart remains the heart. This is the other great thing that Catholicism says. Wounded, clouded in the recognition of the true and weakened in the ability to be consistent with the true, yet the heart remains. The heart of man remains. The heart that our mother, our father gave us, that God has given us through them, remains the heart. That is, the heart remains waiting, waiting to meet something. The heart remains a plea to be content, the heart remains a plea for happiness. The wounded heart remains heart.

I will read two passages of the finest poem of Leopardi Alla sua donna [To His Lady], when Leopardi says that what he wanted in a woman’s beauty was a greater beauty, a beauty that could finally satisfy the longing of the heart. But he adds that this was a dream from when he was an adolescent. Becoming an adult one realizes that this dream is no longer possible. “No hope of seeing you alive remains for me now / I no longer have any hope of seeing you alive”. O beauty, I no longer have any hope of seeing you alive. I no longer have hope, here in this life, of meeting that unexpected thing, that unpredictable thing, that my heart is waiting for. “Already at the dawn / of my dark, uncertain day”. Human genius lies in the prophecy of Christ. Not in the sense that it anticipates Christ, not in the sense that it makes Christian speeches. But in the sense that it awaits Him, requesting or cursing, but it awaits Him. “Already at the dawn / of my dark, uncertain day”. “Uncertain”. If the Holy One, if the Mystery is inaccessible, what can man do if not be uncertain? What can man do? Man cannot be condemned, man cannot be condemned for his nihilism, man cannot be condemned for his ‘non faith’. What can be done, if the Mystery has no face? What can be done? Also because nihilism (St Augustine in this anticipates and responds to Nietzsche) arises from the fact that one realizes that the God one says he affirms is a projection of himself, that is that he realizes he doesn’t exist. If God is a projection, an image of oneself, one realizes that that God does not exist, he is nothing. Nihil est, he is nothing. “… of my dark, uncertain day, / I imagined you a fellow traveler on this arid round”. I thought to meet you in this arid land, to meet what the heart is waiting for. “But there’s no thing / that resembles you on earth”. But on earth I met nothing, nothing that merited my heart to its very depth. So many things (Leopardi also had many women), but nothing, no one who really deserved my heart to the very bottom. “But there’s no thing / that resembles you on earth. And if someone / had a face like yours, in act and word / she’d be, though something like you, far less beautiful”. Here is the insight that can only be grace: but even if there was one thing that looked like you in the face, in acts and words, “she’d be, though something like you, far less beautiful” than what my heart waits for.

This poem ends with a prayer, the most beautiful prayer of an atheist, because Giacomo Leopardi was an atheist and a materialist. No devotee wrote a prayer like this to the Mystery that was revealed: “Whether you are only one of the eternal ideas / to eternal wisdom you refuse to be / arrayed in sensible form”. If you, O beauty, if you, O what the heart is waiting for, if you, O what the heart pleads, if you, happiness, are one of the eternal ideas, that refuses to be clothed in sensible form. “To know the pains of mortal life / in transitory spoils”, and here on earth refuse to experience the troubles of this life that runs towards death, “From here, where years are both ill-starred and brief, / accept this hymn from your unnoticed lover”.

“From here, where years are both ill-starred and brief”. This is Christian realism. From an atheist, but it is Christian realism. It is human realism and therefore a prophecy of Who created the heart like this. From here where things pass by instantly. The beautiful things also pass by instantly, even your baby’s smile, that of the child, even affection for the woman you love. “From here, where years are both ill-starred and brief, / accept this hymn from your unnoticed lover”. The heart remains, the heart that waits for something like that. But man (and we still use an expression of Augustine, who was in the Church perhaps the most humanly fascinating witness to this heart), man is far from this heart, fugitivus cordis sui. Man is far away from this plea and man is satisfied. He is satisfied. And what is he satisfied with? With usury, lust and power. And there is no religion that holds. He is satisfied with these three things, money, lust and power, those who believe in God and those who do not believe. And this is one of the most impressive things about De civitate Dei of Augustine. Belief in God does not in itself change life, in itself it does not change life. All the books of Augustine’s De civitate Dei are relevant. In the eighth, ninth and tenth books Augustine speaks of the philosophers who have known God, who recognized the existence of God. Yet in the end “they thought they had to offer divine honor of rituals and sacrifices to the devil”. Satanism can also be the consequence of proclaiming oneself a believer in God, because belief in God does not really change your life. It is something else that changes your life. If belief in God changed life there was no need for Mary to give birth.

3. It is because of this that we celebrate Christmas. Do you understand? Because if belief in God changed life, there was no need for what happened two thousand years ago. Not only: we could not be grateful as we are grateful. When two thousand years ago in that country, on the border of Palestine, in Galilee of the Gentiles, the angel Gabriel was sent to a Jewish girl named Mary... It all started there. The inaccessible Holy One, the One who created the heart good... (but original sin brought about this condition because of which man is in fact satisfied, cannot but be satisfied with lust, money and power), the inaccessible Holy One became flesh in the womb of a woman. A fact. That simple story began there. And it began precisely as a story, as a simple story. It started with “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee”. And this little Jewish girl, who did not understand immediately, was distressed and wondered what this greeting meant. And the angel said to her: “Fear not, Mary, you have found favor with God”. And then this little girl expressed that “Yes”, that ‘’Here I am”, due to which man has hope of being saved. Without that “Here I am”, all the belief in God does not give hope to people. That “Here I am” begins a story, a simple story. A story that says that He Who began like this with Mary (“You have found favor with God”) is He, is He Who carries out this beginning. In fact think of the Virgin. Think: she remained in this “Here I am”, even when the angel left her. Think of the comfort... (this is one of the things that impresses me most, that most moves me in regard to the Madonna), think of the first comfort that she had, the first confirmation that what she had heard was true, when like every woman she realized she was pregnant. It must have been something other worldly. Because it meant that the promise was real, that promise to which she had immediately said “Yes”, to which she had immediately said, “Here I am“, that promise was real, that which Another had started would be fulfilled. And likewise the other comfort that amazes and moves me is when the angel says to St Joseph in a dream: “Joseph, son of David, do not hesitate to take Mary as your wife: for that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit”. And think, because we can imagine ... (it is some thing else compared to all the religions of this world, it is something else. It is a story of men, of youngsters, they were two youngsters), think what it was for Mary when Joseph took her with him. It was another confirmation, another confirmation that that meeting, that “Hail, full of grace” was real. And then they both went to Elizabeth, because the angel had told her that Elizabeth was also pregnant, and this fact also confirmed that “Hail, full of grace, do not fear, Mary”.

Why is Christianity a simple story? It’s a simple story (we use a word that the Church has used for two thousand years) because it is grace, because it is an event and therefore a story of grace. If it was not grace, it would be something complicated. Why is human religiosity not simple? Because it is born of man. Because it is the good attempt of man, beginning from created things, to recognize the Creator. But this is not a simple thing, it’s something exhausting. The dogma of faith says: it is an exhausting thing, a thing for the few, something that, even when religiosity reaches its goal (the Mystery exists), is mixed with errors. These are the words of the dogma of the Church. Not only is it for the few, not only is it exhausting, but when one arrives at saying “God exists”, this assertion is mixed with errors. Instead, two thousand years ago something that is very simple started. It was promised to that girl that she would conceive and give birth. And in those nine months, very many most human facts... First of all she realized she was pregnant (and that her stomach became bigger as the stomach of any pregnant woman). And the witness of Joseph who, in obedience to the Mystery greater than himself, took her with him. And the witness of her cousin Elizabeth: she also had a son. And that Christmas, that first Christmas, when for the first time the eyes of two youngsters, Mary and Joseph, saw God. They saw God. And so Christianity began. They did not believe that God exists, no, this is also believed by Muslims who in this religiosity are perhaps more religious than us, but they did not see. They did not see – but yet it came about – and in religiosity and morality they may be more moral and more religious than us. Because of this Paul VI was great when in Rome he didn’t do anything to prevent the building of the mosque, and in fact, to those who told him he had to obtain reciprocity, he said the Church does not lower itself to this level. But it’s another thing. Christianity is something else compared to all the religions of the world, to all the morals of the world. It is that two thousand years ago a boy and a girl, Joseph and Mary, saw God with their eyes, not in a mystical vision. Mary gave birth. And Joseph and she looked at him in wonder. This is how the Christian story began. They were there looking at God. And then that same night, the angels announced to the shepherds that in the city of David (for God is faithful to his promises), “in the city of David a Savior has been born for you”. And the shepherds went, they went and saw a baby. That child was God. So when in the Creed we say “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God [that child], begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through him all things were created, for us men and for our salvation [for us men, for man who is content with lust, usury and power, for this man, not for men of good will (the good will is His), but for this concrete man], for us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven and through the Holy Spirit He became incarnate...”.

I add this. After Mary and Joseph, after those thirty years in which the Eternal, Who began to exist and grow over time (the Eternal, remaining eternal, began to exist and grow over time and to count the days, hours, months and years, like every child), after those thirty years that He lived in Nazareth, in obedience to His father and His mother, the mission began, when the first two, that afternoon, on the banks of the Jordan, met Him, when John and Andrew, after John the Baptist had indicated “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him Who taketh away the sins of the world”, followed Him. They followed Him attracted by Him. And then Jesus turned to these two young men – Andrew was married, so he will have been a little older, but John was just a youngster – He asked of these two young people a question: “What do you seek?”. This thing always strikes me. They did not respond to Him we seek the truth, we seek happiness, they didn’t even say to Him that we seek the Messiah. They had Him whom their heart sought in front of them. They had Him in front of them. The heart is infallible, in this the heart is infallible. There is a beautiful thesis of Catholic theology that speaks of the infallibility of faith. The infallibility of the magisterium is secondary with respect to the infallibility of faith. Faith is infallible. What they were looking for, what the heart wanted, they had Him before them. So to that question, “What do you seek?”, they respond by asking the only thing that could be asked. When one encounters what the heart desires one can only ask that this thing will remain. “Master, where do you live?” That is “where are you staying?”. Where are you staying, in order to stay with you? Publicly, here. There, with Mary and Joseph, let us say, privately. The thirty years of private life, private but with very many public episodes: the shepherds, then the Magi, then when twelve years old in the Temple... But still a private story. Here is the beginning of the public story, the story of why we’re here tonight. Because of which there exists in the world this simple story of people amazed because they have met Him. A simple story: they were amazed because they met him and then having once met it depends on Him, it does not depend primarily on you, it depends on Him to remain with you. It is simple because of this. Otherwise – given that the beginning of Christianity is grace (if one is Christian, this must be said) – a different dynamic is introduced. No! Once met, what happens? What have you done to meet Him? Nothing. So, look, do not busy yourself, because it depends on Him. It depends on Him Who met you and remains faithful. It depends on Him that He remains faithful, it does not depend primarily on your faithfulness. It depends on Him. It is simple because of this. It is simple because not only does He meet you, not only is it He who went to the meeting in the beginning, but it depends on Him Who remained with the first ones, it depends on Him that the day after He did it over again from the first ones, it depends on Him that the day after that ...

Andrew went home that night and said to his brother Peter: “We have met the Messiah”. Another thing that amazes me is to think that Peter the first time he caught a glimpse humanly of the Mystery made flesh was looking at the face of his brother. He had never seen Andrew’s face like that, he’d never seen his brother’s face like that, because grace has a reverberation in the human. It is visible, grace. It has an invisible source, but has a visible reverberation, the reflection of grace is seen, it is seen, and is unmistakable. The reflection of grace is infallible, it is unmistakable for any other kind of beauty. It is the beauty for which the heart was created. So it is not only He who comes forward to be met, but it He Who remains, so much so that the next day, when He saw Peter, He said to him: “You are Simon son of John, you will be called Peter”. And so from two they became three, and they went on like that for three years... Just like that. But think in those three years, think of who took the initiative. It was not of those who followed Him, the initiative was always His. Like when the rich young man, invited to follow Him, indeed, loved by Him... Jesus looked at him and became tender, He loved him. Yet he didn’t follow Him, and then Jesus said that it was impossible for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and Peter asked: “But then who can be saved?”. And here is one of the most beautiful phrases of the Gospel: “And Jesus looking at them [looking at them, not theologising, looking at them] said: “For God nothing is impossible”. Looking at them, because what was evident to Him as Mystery, as a man He learned from the things that happened, as we learn from what happens. If Peter was there, if John was there, if Matthew was there (I was thinking today, seeing the paintings of Caravaggio, I thought of the Calling of Matthew by Caravaggio in San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome), if Zacchaeus came down full of joy it means that for God nothing is impossible. Because Matthew was rich, indeed collected the money for the Roman invaders, and Zacchaeus, the richest man in Jericho... if they were there, it means that for God nothing is impossible. Jesus too, as man learned the nature of the Mystery from what happened. What He knew as God, as man He learned from experience. St Bernard says in one of the most wonderful phrases on the mystery of Jesus: what by nature He knew from all eternity (that for God nothing is impossible) He learned from human experience. He also was amazed when he saw Zacchaeus come running down. Consider the episode of Zacchaeus. This little man who had to climb a tree to see Him pass. This little man who was the leader of illegal gangs in the city of Jericho, and Jesus Who is passing by, looked at him and said, “Zacchaeus, I’m coming to your house”. He said nothing, he did not reply at all. Full of joy he came down. And then he distributed four times what he had stolen. But then, then! Immediately, full of joy he came down and ran to his house. Then it is simple, it is easy not only because the beginning is grace, but because each step is grace. St Thomas says in one of his most beautiful phrases (the Catholic Church, also using this phrase, last year, signed a document with the Lutherans, which said that on the essential aspects of the doctrine of justification Catholics and Lutherans recognize the same thing): “Gratia facit fidem”, grace creates faith. Faith is the recognition of this attraction, faith is the recognition of this meeting, faith is the recognized wonder of this meeting. “Gratia facit fidem non solum quando fides incipit esse in homine”, grace creates faith not only when faith begins to exist in a man, “sed quamdiu fides durat”, but for every moment that faith remains. In every moment, not only at the beginning, in every moment the initiative is His.

This afternoon I visited the Caravaggio exhibition here in Bergamo. Beautiful. We were guided by a priest who very humanly, in a very beautiful manner, described things. At some point, however, he said that Caravaggio expresses the struggle of faith. I would not say so. Faith, when it happens, is never exhausting. ‘Non-faith’ is easy. Yes, this ‘non-faith’ is easy. “Men of little faith, why do you doubt?”. It’s very easy, even for those who followed Him, ‘non-faith’ is very easy, it is easy to doubt, it is easy to curse, this yes. Because the grace of Baptism erases original sin, but not the consequences of original sin. ‘Non-faith’ is very easy, doubt is very easy, betrayal is very easy. Think of Peter: “Even if they all abandon you I will never leave you”. Three hours later... Three hours later! First of all, half an hour later, he had fallen asleep. And then, three hours later, he betrayed Him. Betrayal is very easy. But faith is easier. It is easier to have faith. If not, it means that you do not know what it is. It is easier, because when Jesus, after the betrayal, looked at him, it was easier to burst into tears, easier than anything else. Faith is easier. A difficult faith doesn’t exist. It’s easier. It is a non-Christian image of faith to say that faith is difficult. It’s easy, it’s even easier than betrayal. Think of that poor man Peter, that poor sinner Peter: when Jesus looked at him, it was the easiest thing in life to burst into tears, it was the easiest thing in life to begin to cry. It was the easiest thing in life to say: “How you love me, how you love me. And yet I betrayed you”. Faith is easy, it’s easy. There is no faith (this is a dogma of faith), there is no faith if the Holy Spirit doesn’t give the sweetness (speaking of sweetness, sweetness cannot be difficult, that would be inhuman), the sweetness to adhere. It is the Spirit, it is grace that gives the sweetness to adhere. The word sweetness is used: easier than that! Faith is easy. The instant afterwards, you may not believe. The next instant, you can swear, the next instant you can chase after money, lust and power. But if one has experienced this sweetness, he can run after it like all the others, but yet this sweetness is the easiest thing, is the easiest thing. And to cry after having chased after lust, money, power, to cry, because this sweetness comes back, because that look concerns you, beginning to cry is the easiest thing. Nothing is easier for the child who, after all the caprices of this world, abandons himself to the arms of dad and mum, there is nothing easier. You say it is difficult for the child? It would be inhuman if he didn’t abandon himself. It’s the easiest thing in the world to abandon oneself to the arms of dad and mum.

I wanted to say one last thing. What does this grace without which he can do nothing ask of man? “May Your grace always precede and accompany us”, says one of the prayers of the Church. Lex orandi legem statuat credendi, so said the ancient formula that Pius XII cited, but perhaps foreseeing what would happen, he then changed to Lex credendi legem statuat orandi and that is that the law of faith establishes the law of prayer. But the old formula said that it is the law of prayer that establishes the law of faith. St Augustine, in response to the Pelagians, normally used this argument: You say that faith is not grace, then why does the Church pray that an unbeliever be converted? Either those prayers are just a way of saying, or it is God who converts the heart. You say that staying in the faith is not grace, but then why do we ask in the Lord’s prayer not to lead us into temptation? If it was our capability to overcome temptation we wouldn’t pray not to lead us into temptation. So it means that not to let ourselves be overwhelmed by temptation is grace. Either the Church says its prayers as a way of saying, or you must accept as Augustine said to the heretical Pelagians, that every step of the Christian life is grace, otherwise you should delete the prayers of the Church. “May Your grace always precede and accompany us, O Lord”. So what is man’s part in this journey in which the initiative is His? “If you do not take the initiative I do not start out”, said Pope Luciani the day before his sudden death. On Thursday night he died and on Wednesday he made the gesture that the Pope makes every Wednesday, speaking of charity. A gesture entirely focused on this one thing: if you do not take the initiative I do not start out. And he said, what does it mean to take the initiative? (and he quoted St Augustine, one of the most marvelous phrases of Augustine). It does not mean only that He attracts my freedom, but it also means that He makes me happy to be attracted. I am not only attracted, but He gives me the pleasure (Augustine specifically says voluptas, pleasure) of being attracted. If He does not give me the pleasure of adhering, if He does not give me the pleasure of following Him, I cannot follow Him. Not only does He attract the will, but He gives the pleasure of being attracted. It is one of the most beautiful pages in the ordinary magisterium of the Church, that speech on charity by Pope Luciani of twenty-two years ago.

But what then is possible for man? I say it with the words of Don Giussani in an article on the Holy Rosary published in Avvenire on Sunday 30 April (in my opinion one of the most beautiful things absolutely, not only by Giussani, but of the whole Church in recent decades), “The answer to this Grace is completely in the prayer of which we are capable”. The answer to this grace (which is not just the beginning but at each step) is completely in the prayer of which we are capable. Our answer is a prayer, it is a plea. Our answer is the surprise of a plea, a plea like that of John and Andrew: “Where do you live?”. Faced with something so beautiful our response is: “Stay!”. Faced with so great a sweetness, our response is: “Do not forsake me, stay!”. Our whole answer is this, and it’s all the child’s response when his dad and mum love him. “Our answer is a prayer. It is not a particular ability, it is just the momentum of prayer”. It may be the baby’s cry that calls to dad and mum to love him. The crying. In the ancient liturgy there was a mass to ask for the gift of tears. We plead a lot more with tears than with words. The impetus, the impetus of a plea. Habet et laetitia lacrimas suas. Thus St Ambrose. When one is happy with this sweetness, this joy has its tears. Basically, joy is expressed only by crying. So Giussani says in that article: “Our answer is a prayer, it is not a particular ability, it is just the momentum of prayer”. Giussani adds (I read this because it takes up Péguy again with whom we started): “We enter the month of May [now we’re in the Christmas novena]. The Christian people for centuries has been blessed [the beginning is His: blessed] and confirmed in striving toward salvation [confirmed: because if He does not confirm, although we have encountered Him, we do not stay in the encounter. Thus the simplicity of Tradition. For example, a dogma of the Council of Trent says: “If one is in grace, without a special help of grace, one cannot remain in grace”. Do you understand how all of Christian life is supported by His initiative? If one is in grace, without a special gift of grace that may be pleaded, without an attraction that is renewed, one does not remain in that attraction. You cannot live on a past love, you cannot live on the attraction of yesterday, not even on the attraction of a moment ago. You cannot. You can only live of the present. So if anyone is in grace, to remain in grace the renewal of this special help is necessary]. The Christian people for centuries has been blessed and confirmed in striving toward salvation, I believe, especially by one thing: the Holy Rosary”. Christian life is simple, it’s simple. After decades of many words, so many struggles and so many challenges... There was an Angelus in which Pope Luciani said: “Less battles and more prayers”. The Christian people have been blessed and confirmed, I believe, by one thing: the recitation of the Holy Rosary.

And I end up by reading some verses of the poem by Péguy with which I began. He describes the remaining in this grace. “This is the place of the world where everything becomes easy”. Easy even sin, even betrayal, like Peter. Easy also the temptation to chase after lust, money and power. But easy to be hugged again. And to weep in gratitude. Easier. The difference is that those who do not experience it do not know this much easier thing. They know all the other things, but do not know this much easier one. Easier, more beautiful, more simple. Everything becomes easier. “The regret, the departure and also the event”. Also the recurrence of this wonder is easy: in Paradise it will be everlasting, here it is easy, here it is easy for it to happen again, not perennial. And St Augustine again says: the Lord also to His elect, to His holy ones can at certain times not give the winning attraction to himself because thus, experiencing being sinners, they place hope in Him and not in themselves. Easy. “And the temporary parting, the separation, / The only corner of the world where everything becomes docile. ... This that everywhere else requires an examination / Here it is no more than the effect of a defenceless youth”. What everywhere else requires an examination so that you have to prove yourself to be good. Also at home it is so, many times. You have to prove to be good. You cannot be a poor sinner. You have to prove to be good. Thus, to the fact of being a sinner like everyone else, you also add hypocrisy, which is the greater sin, that of the Pharisees. “This that everywhere else requires an examination / Here it is no more than the effect of a defenceless youth. / This that everywhere else asks for a postponement / Here it is only a present weakness. / / This that everywhere else requires proof / Here is only the fruit of a poor tenderness. / This that everywhere else demands a touch of skill / Here is only the result of humble ineptitude. ... This that everywhere else is a compulsion of rule / Here is only an impetus and an abandonment”. As Giussani says. Only the momentum of prayer, only the impetus of a plea. As the child during the day can break a glass many times. He might break it a thousand times and a thousand times say “Mum, help me not to break it”, this is the Christian man. “Mum, help me not to break it”. And it’s easier, happier for the child in his mother’s arms to say: “Mum, help me not to break it”, than even not to break the glass. “This that everywhere else is a compulsion of rule / Here is only an impetus and an abandonment; / This that everywhere else is a harsh penalty / Here is only a weakness that is raised. ...This that everywhere else would be a hard effort / Here is only simplicity and quietness; / This that everywhere else is the rough bark / Here is only the sap and tears of the shoot. ...This that everywhere else is only a perishable good / Here is only quietness and swift disengagement; / This that everywhere else is a swaggering about / Here is only a rose and a footprint on the sand. ... Many things have been said, O Queen of Apostles / We have lost the taste for speeches / We no longer have altars unless yours / We do not know anything other than a simple prayer”. Merry Christmas.

The prefect of the ‘young’ Churches

by Gianni Valente

Fernando Filoni was born on 15 April 1946 in Manduria, in the province of Taranto, to a family, originally from Galatone (Lecce), where the father served in the IRS. He completed his middle school in Nardò, his high school studies in Molfetta, at the Pius XI Puglia regional seminary and those of theology in Viterbo, at the seminary in Santa Maria della Quercia. He was ordained a priest by Antonio Rosario Mennonna, Bishop of Nardò, on 3 July 1970. He moved to Rome and attended the Pontifical Lateran University, earning a degree in Canon Law, and the State University La Sapienza, where he graduated in philosophy. At the Pro Deo (now part of the Free International University of Social Studies) he obtained a degree in the Sciences and methods of public opinion, specializing in journalism. After completing his studies, the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, Ugo Poletti, proposed that he enter the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.

In 1981 he began his diplomatic mission serving the Holy See in Sri Lanka. Then he was assigned to Iran from 1983 to 1985. After some years of service in the Secretariat of State, in 1989 he was transferred to Brazil, where he remained until 1992, when he began to reside in Hong Kong. In the then British colony the Holy See had opened a ‘Study Mission’ – formally linked to the Nunciature in the Philippines – to follow from close by the situation of the Church in China. His stay in Hong Kong lasted until January 2001, when John Paul II appointed him titular archbishop of Volturno and pontifical nuncio in Jordan and Iraq. He remained in Baghdad during the last two years of the regime of Saddam Hussein, and then during the war and for the next three years, until, in March 2006, Pope Benedict XVI transferred him as nuncio to the Philippines. In June 2007 he was appointed Deputy Secretary of State, an office he held until 10 May 2011, the day of his appointment as Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Benedict XVI created him a cardinal in the Ordinary Public Consistory of 18 February 2012.

A patriarch for the people

by Gianni Valente

Francesco Moraglia, second son of four children (two girls and two boys), was born in Genoa, on 25 May 1953 to a lawyer father – who died last February – and a mother teacher and then housewife. He was ordained a priest on 29 June 1977.
In 1979 he was appointed assistant pastor in a parish in the center of Genoa, a position he held until 1988. In 1981 he received his doctorate in dogmatic theology and in 1986 began teaching at the Ligurian Higher Institute of Religious Sciences, teaching fundamental Dogmatic Theology and Sacramental Theology. From 1994 to 2007 he was also dean of the Institute. From the late ’eighties he also taught Christology, Anthropology, Sacramental Theology and the History of Theology at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy, a branch of the Seminary of Genoa.
From 1990 until 2007 he was diocesan assistant to MEIC (Church Movement for Cultural Involvement). From 1995 he was appointed chairman of the Diocesan Commission for the pastoral problems of alternative religious movements and of sects, and also – since 1996 – Director of the Diocesan Office for Culture and the University.
On 6 December 2007 he was appointed bishop of the Episcopal See of La Spezia – Sarzana – Brugnato. Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco ordained him bishop on 3 February 2008.
In April 2010 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Culture and Communication Foundation of the IEC, on which TV2000 depends.
Benedict XVI appointed him Patriarch of Venice on 31 January 2012. On 29 May 2012 he was elected president of the Bishops’ Conference of Triveneto.
In conjunction with the entrance and the first months of pastoral ministry in Venice, two instant-books published by Cid/Gente Veneta were already dedicated to the new Patriarch: Francesco, Patriarca dei due mari [Francesco, Patriarch of the two seas] (with a preface by Dino Boffo) and Con voi e per voi [With you and for you] (with a foreword by Don Sandro Vigani). Some photos on these pages have been taken from them.

What makes us one

by Cardinal Donald Wuerl

We come together at this historic and ancient Roman Church to renew our faith. What brings us to this church this morning is an act of personal faith. We are here because we need to be here. We need once again to hear the proclamation that is at the heart of our faith. Christ is risen!
On Easter Sunday with joy and exaltation, the entire Church throughout the world proclaimed once again, as it has done for nearly twenty centuries, “Christ is Risen!”
Today we continue that proclamation and come together to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus for two reasons: to reaffirm our own personal faith in Jesus’ Resurrection, and to rejoice in what it means for each of us – new life in Christ. We were not there at the empty tomb of the Resurrection, so we need to hear, again, the testimony of those who were.
The touchstone for all of those generations and generations and generations of witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus is here in Rome, the city of Saint Peter – the Rock on which our testimony stands.
In the context of the celebration of Easter, we also celebrate this Mass in honor of Saint Peter, head of the Apostles and Vicar of Christ. Today the voice and message, the proclamation and teaching of Peter continue to echo in our hearts because they echo throughout the whole world. The touchstone of the proclamation is Peter. All of us have a special bond to Rome because Peter continues to live and exercise his ministry here. We who come from various parts of the United States recognize the unique role of Peter.
This Mass recalls for us the great gratitude that must fill our hearts. We thank God for the gift of faith. In the first reading, today taken from the First Letter of Peter, we are told how we are to look to the presbyters, to the examples to the flock in both faith and ministry.
We are a people of faith. What identifies us as a community is precisely the gift of faith for which each of us needs to be so profoundly grateful. As a people of faith, we recognize the great gift that Jesus gives us – his Church, his new Body. When we give thanks to God for so many blessings, we include the gift of the Church – Christ’s continuing presence in the world today. We also give thanks for our Holy Father, the visible head of the Church who is the touchstone of our faith and our unity.
Last November I had the great privilege of concelebrating with our Holy Father at Mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica. The day before, he handed me the Papal bull naming me to this ancient and historic church. It is one of only two ancient churches in Rome that bear the name Peter – Saint Peter in the Vatican and Saint Peter in Chains. That ceremony highlighted the bonds that every Cardinal has with Rome, as a priest of one of its parishes, and with Rome’s Bishop, Peter.
Five years ago, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, came to the United States and at National Park in the Archdiocese of Washington, he began his celebration of the Eucharist with us by telling us “in the exercise of my ministry as the successor of Peter, I have come to America to confirm you, my brothers and sisters, in the faith of the Apostles (cf. Luke 22, 32).”
Today we return the visit. We come to profess our faith, our loyalty and our love for the Successor of Peter.
Today our celebration is a visible sign of the communion of faith spread throughout the whole world and how it is anchored here in Rome, where Peter lives now, bearing the name Benedict XVI. But there is still more that makes us one. As we complete these reflections on the Word of God and our visit to Rome, we join the Risen Lord, who is present with us in the Eucharist. The Gospel tells us that Jesus sat at a table with disciples and then, “he took bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to them. With that, their eyes were open and they recognized him”.
After the celebrant shows the consecrated host and the chalice of Precious Blood to the people at Mass, he genuflects in adoration and then joins the people in one of several proclamations expressing the core of our Catholic faith. “When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death O Lord, until you come again”.
Our faith teaches us that “when the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the memorial of her Lord’s death and resurrection, this central event of salvation becomes really present and the work of our redemption is carried out” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 11). For this reason we can rightfully speak of the Mass as the source and summit of our Christian life.
In our celebration today we recognize and we proclaim that because we are members of the Church in communion with Peter and his successors, we not only hear the Good News that Christ is risen, but we actually recognize him in the breaking of the bread and share in the mystery of his death and Resurrection – in the Eucharist.
Let us simply thank God that you and I have been invited into the life of the Risen Lord and are privileged to encounter him every time we celebrate this Holy Eucharist – this Holy Mass.
At the same time, we ask God to continue to bless the Church of Rome, to which we now are bound in a particular way through this church of Saint Peter in Chains, and to bless its faithful people and its Chief Shepherd, Benedict XVI – Peter, today.

(Edited by Giovanni Cubeddu. The text of this homily delivered in Saint Peter in Chains, in Rome, on 18 April 2012, was reviewed by the author for 30Giorni)

LETTERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD

CUBA

Quien reza se salva and 30Días are magnificent for a mission land

Havana, 1 March 2012

To the Piccola Via Charitable Association.

Dear Brothers,

Peace and health!

I write from my beloved Cuba, a mission country, to thank you for the catechism [Quien reza se salva]; 30Días is also one of your splendid gifts. Both the catechism and the magazine 30Días have a high level of Catholic teaching and information; they are wonderful for a mission land, particularly in rural communities like those in which we work.

We also have a project – to which we gave the name of the Cuban Blessed José Olallo Valdés – through which we bring aid to families with disabled children, quadriplegics, or suffering from serious diseases. No one takes care of these families. They are twelve in all, for which I ask only your mercy, together with that of Jesus; we need above all cleaning materials and powdered milk.

Many times I have invited Mr Giulio Andreotti and his collaborators here to Cuba. I invite you too. In Cuba, the Italians are much loved and many priests also work here.

Thanks for everything,

Sergio León Mendiboure, missionary

MEXICO

PERPETUAL ADORATION SISTERS OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT OF OUR LADY OF LA ESPERANZA CONVENT

One hundred copies of Quien reza se salva for my ‘little sheep’

Cotija, Michoacán de Ocampo, 9 March 2012

Praised be the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Esteemed Piccola Via Charitable Association,

I greet you cordially wishing that the Peace of Christ may inundate your apostolate and each member of the Association.

First of all, congratulations for your fine magazine 30Giorni that does so much good to souls. All its topics strengthen us in faith, and there are many contemplative souls to which it does great good. I will ask that your apostolate be blessed.

I thought a lot about what I’m going to say and have always been uncertain whether to do so. I request that you grant me the charity of sending me one hundred copies of Quien reza se salva, but I’m poor, I have no money. But, in the words of our Blessed Mother founder, “I have a very rich Spouse...”. Trusting in Him and in His divine providence, I ask them for free. “He Who is very rich, will reward you as only He can “. Tell Jesus that His spouse wants these books because she has many little sheep who do not know how to pray or make an examination of conscience for confession.

I can only offer you my poor prayers before the Blessed Sacrament day and night.

May Our Blessed Mother founder María Magdalena de la Encarnación intercede for the Association.

May God reward you! Count on my prayers.

Sister María Iolanda de Jesús, perpetual adorer of the Most Holy Sacrament

PHILIPPINES

CAPUCHIN POOR CLARES OF THE SANTA CLARA CONVENT

Who prays is saved as a gift for the faithful

Laoag City, 13 March 2012

Dear Senator Andreotti,

Peace and good!

We would like once again to express our gratitude for the kindness and generosity shown to us by sending regular free copies of 30Days. Your magazine, so rich in information, has long been a constant source of information for us on the Church and the outside world, and for this wonderful gift we are truly grateful to you. We are now coming to the climax of the celebrations for the eight hundred years of the founding of the Order of Saint Clare and we are pleased to inform you that, even as we write, the relics of our mother, Saint Clare, are here in the Philippines, brought by the Ambassador of the Philippines to the Holy See, and are making the rounds of various communities of Poor Clares of the archipelago. In this regard, we humbly ask you and your employees for some free copies of Who prays is saved. We thought it would be a wonderful gift to the faithful who on 11 August 2012 will join us for the celebrations on the feast of our Mother. We would like to ask you for least five hundred copies, but if you can not, we will be happy with what you can send us. Thank you so much and may the Lord continue to bless you and all your intentions, while we will continue to pray for the success of your mission.

With all respect, yours,

Sister María Lilia Javier, CCS, and Community

Laoag City, 25 April 2012

Dear Mr Senator,

Peace and all good!

We would like once again to express our gratitude for your kindness and generosity towards us and for the prompt response to our request for free copies of Who prays is saved. Thanks so much for having so diligently fulfilled our wish. May the Lord, unsurpassable in generosity, reward you for your efforts. For our part we promise to remember all your intentions in our prayers, especially when we are kneeling before the Most Blessed Sacrament.

May God bless us all.

Respectfully yours,

for Sister María Lilia Javier, CCS, and Community Sister Ana María de San José

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

PARISH OF NOTRE-DAME DE L’ASSOMPTION

Qui prie sauve son âme for children and families

Boma, 19 March 2012

Mr Director,

Thank you because I received the rosaries: they are really needed for children. But we still need some Qui prie sauve son âme booklets, in great demand by the children and Christian families in our parish and diocese.

Thanks for all you have done so far. May God bless you!

Roger Phanzu-Kumbu

GUINEA-BISSAU

CATHOLIC MISSION OF CANCHUNGO

Quem reza se salva to distribute to the youth

Canchungo, 27 March 2012

Dear 30Giorni,

I have only now received some back issues because of my change of address.

For the same reason, I have not even received the CD of Gregorian chants. And to think that I still keep the Liber usualis bought in the ’fifties when I was in the minor seminary!

Also, I will make a proposal: to send me the Portuguese edition of 30Dias, so that it can also serve my brothers. Here in Guinea-Bissau Portuguese is the official language in fact, even if they speak kriol. I would recommend this for all the copies sent to Guinea-Bissau, although, of course, this proposal is not my responsibility.

I would also like some copies of Quem reza se salva sent to me, also in Portuguese, which I will distribute to those who may be inclined to vocation or some good young people. For this I send you one hundred euros.

Please excuse the inconvenience.

Father Rino Furlato, OFM

PANAMA

ST PETER THE APOSTLE PARISH

The faithful continue to ask for Quien reza se salva

Santa Fe, 23 April 2012

Dear Brothers,

My name is Arcelio Castro and I have been working for nine months in the parish of St Peter the Apostle in Santa Fe, in the north of the Veraguas region, in Panama.

I would first of all like to thank sincerely all those who worked on the preparation of the booklet Quien reza se salva, in particular the director and editor Giulio Andreotti and Roberto Rotondo. I received, some months ago, five hundred copies through the Monastery de la Visitación in Panama City: they have already been distributed, one for each family, and were very well received, even by those who had moved away from religious practice. Many have asked to borrow them to be able to read them at home, calmly.

The faithful continue to ask for the booklet. I write for this reason, that is to make the request of another five hundred copies. If you can, you can send them to the same address, namely the Monastery de la Visitacion of Panama. If you need a contribution, I ask you to inform us. For our part we continue to ask those who have benefited from the booklets for prayers for donors, and I myself offer some masses.

God bless you abundantly for the support of our parish.

Fraternally,

Father Arcelio Castro

MEXICO

PERPETUAL ADORATION SISTERS OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST CONVENT

We receive with immense gratitude Quien reza se salva and the other publications

Coscomatepec, Veracruz, 25 April 2012

Dear Senator Giulio Andreotti,

Praised be the Most Blessed Sacrament!

Please receive a fraternal greeting in the Risen Jesus: we hope from the heart that He bless you abundantly and reward your generosity to our monastic community.

We are the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Convent of Saint John the Baptist in Coscomatepec. Our mission is to witness the presence of our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist, prostrate at His feet day and night, offering our continued prayer and worship for all of mankind. Because of this, we turn to you with great gratitude, receiving from your great generosity the magazine 30Días, the booklet Quien reza se salva, “El Hijo no puede hacer nada por su cuenta” and the Los cantos de la Tradición. Not being in a condition to pay the good you do us, we ask God in our prayers and we place in the hands of Our Lady of Guadalupe your needs and those of all the people who cooperate in the publication of this enriching material that informs us and forms us for our spiritual life. The last time we received the magazine was in December last year, the most recent numbers have not yet arrived; we hope to continue to receive the magazine monthly and other publications you direct.

Certain that Jesus Eucharist will be your reward, and that of your loved ones and associates, we greet you.

Most affectionately in Christ,

Mother Esperanza del Corazón de Jesús and Community

COLOMBIA

APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF SAN VICENTE – PUERTO LEGUÍZAMO

I would like to give Quien reza se salva to the catechists

San Vicente, 1 May 2012

Dear Senator Giulio Andreotti,

I am a diocesan priest of the Apostolic Vicariate of San Vicente – Puerto Leguízamo, a vast region (ninety-six thousand square kilometers) of the Colombian Amazon; my job for over ten years, is as vicar of pastoral care and person responsible for the areas of Catechesis, Biblical Promotion and the Pontifical Missionary Works. We are few and have more than one job. I turn to you to ask you kindly to send us a good number of copies of the book Quien reza se salva because I would like to give the catechists and promoters of the word a good tool like this for them to continue in their ministry of catechesis.

This is a local church with many needs and many challenges, since clashes between soldiers of the national army, guerrillas of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), drug traffickers and paramilitary groups often occur, which create continuous apprehension in our population and communities. The choice to operate for the poor and our missionary vocation ask us to be with our people always and to be a prophetic voice to denounce abuses and irregularities that from every side violate human rights and international humanitarian law. We are a credible Church and well accepted by our members. The challenges are many, but faith and hope in the Risen Lord comfort us and encourage us to continue in the mission entrusted to us. Thank you so much for the attention that you may give to this.

Father Ricardo Tovar Sánchez

LEBANON

ORDER OF THE CARMELITE FATHERS

Qui prie sauve son âme, simple and practical tool for prayer

Hazmieh, 11 May 2012

Dear Director,

May the peace of the Lord be always with you!

Thank you for the magazine 30Jours that always arrives to me. I read a lot about the booklet Qui prie sauve son âme which has done so much good to all the people who have benefited from it. Therefore, with this, I ask, if possible, to send us a hundred copies, since many of our young people (prayer groups) would like to use this tool as a simple and practical way to prayer.

May the good Lord continue to keep you in good health and to bless your mission in the Church.

Father Makhoul Farha, OCD, Provincial Superior of the Carmelites in Lebanon

BENIN

CONVENT OF ETOILE NOTRE-DAME

Qui prie sauve son âme helps to pray well

Parakou, 29 May 2012

Mr Director,

I am writing to thank you for sending 30Jours, a very well documented magazine and with very fine graphics. But that is not all. Some years ago we asked for some copies of the booklet Qui prie sauve son âme. All copies were distributed in a very short time for the spiritual good of those who benefited from them. Now many are asking for these booklets that help them to pray well. This would also avoid them finding refuge in sects, very numerous in Benin.

If you could then renew your generous gesture, we would be deeply grateful to you. Thanks in advance from all persons who, thanks to you, come near to God.

Respectfully,

Mother Bibiane Igbaro

Notice to Readers

Dear Readers,

It is with great sorrow that we announce that 30Days in the Church and in the World is suspending its publications with issue number 5 of 2012.
Unfortunately, some events of these recent months, especially the death of Don Giacomo Tantardini, make it impossible to continue with the publication. The Director Giulio Andreotti shares our regret also because of the value that 30Days has had for the Church in recent years.
We would like to thank all those who accompanied us with their esteem and affection. The letters we received, and that continue to arrive, in the editorial office from all over the world have brought us great comfort in a special way.
The words of laity, missionaries, nuns, priests, bishops and cardinals who wrote to us were a beautiful and comforting encouragement to our work, which we always tried to interpret as a small service of insignificant servants to the Church of the Lord. Heartfelt thanks to all.
We would also like to communicate that both the e-mail address abbonati30g@30giorni.it, as well as the telephone number +39 06 7264041, will remain operative for information about subscriptions and publications of 30Days, such as the little booklet, Who prays is saved.

The cooperative 30Giorni

My friend Don Giacomo

by Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio

“Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you; Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Heb 13, 7). Thus, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts us to bear in mind those who announced the Gospel to us and who have already departed. He asks us to remember them, but not in that formal and, at times pitiable way, that leads us to say “how good he was!”, a phrase often heard in the courtyard of cemeteries. That type of memory is a simple reminder of social formalities. This asks us, rather, to remember them beginning from the fruitfulness of their sowing in our midst. It asks us to remember them with the memory of the heart, that Deuteronomic memory that builds on rock, that moulds lives and marks hearts. Yes, our heart is built on the memory of those men and women who have brought us closer to sources of life and hope that can also be drawn upon by those who follow us. It is the memory of the inheritance we have received and that we must, in turn, transmit to our children.

So, it is with this memory that we remember Don Giacomo, and we ask ourselves: what did he leave us? What signs of him do we find on the journey of our life? I dare simply say that he left the impression of a man-child who never finished being surprised. Don Giacomo, the man of wonder; the man who let himself be surprised by God and was able to open up the path so that this wonder be born in others.

Don Giacomo, a man surprised that, as he watched the Lord who called him, always wondered within himself, was hardly able to believe it, as Caravaggio’s Matthew: I, Lord? A man overwhelmed with wonder before this indescribable “superabundance” of grace that wins over the mean abundance of sin, that sin that diminishes us, always; a man amazed that he felt himself sought, wanted and loved by God long before he himself had sought him, wanted him and loved him; a man in wonderment who, like those of Lake Tiberias, did not dare ask Him who He was because he knew He was the Lord.

And this man in wonder, allowed himself, more than once, to be queried: “Do you love me?”, to reply with the ardent simplicity of love: “Lord, you know that I love you”. And it was so because this man-child nurtured his love with the simple but wise readiness of the contemplation of all that Grace that surpassed him.

Don Giacomo was so. He had not lost the ability to be surprised; he reflected beginning with the wonder that he received and nourished in prayer. Sometimes, he gave the impression that this sensibility stressed him, made him tired or restless, and this is not unusual in a man with a strong human temperament, on which Grace did not cease to work in his conversion to meekness.

The last image I have of him moves me: during the ceremony of confirmations in Saint Laurence Outside the Walls, with hands clasped, his eyes open and in wonder, smiling and serious at the same time. There, we prayed for his health... and he expressed his gratitude with a gesture that was of hope of healing and, at the same time, of trust. Thus, by grace, one can persevere on the path until the end: the man-child abandons himself to the arms of Jesus while he asks that this chalice may pass, and is picked up and carried in the arms, his hands clasped and eyes open. Allowing himself to be surprised once again, for the greatest gift.

I thank God our Lord for having known him. That “consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” of the Epistle to the Hebrews is also directed to me.

Buenos Aires, 6 May 2012

A rosary for the whole world

Interview with Cardinal Fernando Filoni by Gianni Valente

On 19 February last the task of presenting to Benedict XVI the address of homage in the name of the new cardinals created in the Consistory the day before fell to him. On that occasion, His Eminence Cardinal Filoni placed the service of the new cardinals “under the protection of Mary, Mother of Grace”. Now, his ‘strategy’ for living the forthcoming Year of Faith is a simple rosary. A rosary of prayers to be offered for the proclamation of the Gospel on every continent. The easiest way to “ask the Lord for the gift of faith,” for oneself and for others. This is a Campaign of world prayer for the evangelization which must accompany the Year of Faith, to which Pope Benedict XVI gave his own blessing on 11 May, during an audience granted to the National Directors of the Pontifical Missionary Works, who will be the leaders of the initiative in their own countries.

Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, has traveled the world and knows how it works. His confidential nature, the distaste for gossip, the great capacity for work, the promptness in going to the heart of the problems, looking for solutions with a sense of reality are known. And the fact that these qualities do not draw up the outline of a Vatican ‘bureaucrat’, but rather reveal a spiritual wisdom and insight into the things of the Church and the world that is simple and concrete. As rosary beads.

30Days met him in his studio in the historic Palazzo di Propaganda Fide, Rome, overlooking the Spanish Steps. The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples today comprises over a thousand ecclesiastical districts, including the vast majority of dioceses in Africa, Asia and Oceania, as well as universities, seminaries, hospitals, schools.

When you became cardinal, in your biographical note published in L’Osservatore Romano it was written that as a child “your house was just opposite the church of your town”. Evidently, this was an important detail in your life...

FERNANDO FILONI: God offers many opportunities, and builds our story on the basis of what we are. I frequented the parish church, served Mass for the priests and being with them at the altar I was aware of their sense of dedication. Until one evening the parish priest asked all us altar boys, but will none of you this year enter the seminary? I raised my hand and said: I! There was something of childhood spontaneity in that impulse. But also the fact of having grown up having the faith of my mother and father, in the things of every day, before my eyes, had something to do with it.

The years of your preparation for the priesthood were those of Vatican Council II.

Our superior had us read the news of the Council during meals. The TV, even though in black and white, gave us visually the image of the universality and the varied human diversity of the Church: the pope, bishops and patriarchs of the East who entered St Peter’s in procession. Whites, blacks, bearded, Westerners, Easterners... When I started theology at the seminary of Viterbo, the Council was over. The high-backed chairs that served for the general congregations of the Council Fathers were sent to various seminaries. The theology lecture hall was set up with those that arrived in Viterbo. So we attended the lectures sitting on the chairs of the Council fathers. And we tried to imagine who had been sitting on those seats now occupied by us.

Your episcopal motto is “Lumen Gentium Christus”. It recalls the first words of the dogmatic constitution on the Church, the most important document released by the Council.

We were impressed by the great debate on the Church that had formed the core of the Council: “Lumen Gentium Christus”, all in only three words. The beginning of the conciliar Constitution recalled the mystery and mission of the Church. If the Church does not reflect the light of Christ, it has no reason to exist. We too were asked to proclaim and bear witness to Christ. This is the mission that the Church has also entrusted to me. As a priest, and then as a bishop, and also as nuncio.

After your priestly ordination, you came to Rome to continue your studies. You lived and carried out your pastoral ministry in a parish, and taught in a Roman high school. How do you remember that time?

My bishop had allowed me to go to Rome to complete my studies. I chose to stay in a parish, and not in a college. They were very beautiful years. The parish was that of St Titus, which has now been entitled to San Leonardo Murialdo. I taught religion at the Vivona high school, at the separate branch that then became the Socrates high school. I met hundreds of boys and girls. It was the ’seventies, the time of contestation. For me, who was studying theology, the continuous dialogue with them was a help to compare what we were studying with real life. Also for the youngsters, I think, it was an interesting experience to hear about theology and church history outside of the trivializations that were in many newspapers.

How did you enter the Holy See’s diplomatic service?

When my bishop asked me to return to the diocese – I had been missing for eight years – Cardinal Ugo Poletti, Vicar, with his affable and engaging manner, said: “Your diocese already has plenty of priests! The Secretary of State asks me if any are available…”. It may seem like an accident along the way. But for me it passed also through there, the main thread that traces the life of God within us.

After a period in Sri Lanka, you were sent to Iran. How was that country in those years?

It was the hardest period of the war between Iran and Iraq. The bombings came even as far as Tehran. It was a very violent war, with hundreds of thousands of deaths. The Holy See had an old mission there, since a representative of Pope Urban VIII established himself in Isfahan in 1629 at the request of Shah Abbas the Great, the artificer of a cultural and political Persian renaissance. A presence that always remained one of fluctuating fortunes, up to the point of the establishing of full diplomatic relations between Iran and the Holy See in 1953. There I was able to share the life of the local Christian community, composed of Catholic and Orthodox Armenians, Latin and Chaldean Catholics. For them life was not always easy. But we were very respected. There was the case of employees taken hostage in the U.S. embassy. But that event also created esteem for the nunciature, which faced the difficult issue from a humanitarian point of view, without intervening in the political sphere. And this was appreciated.

After further diplomatic stages (Secretariat of State, Brazil), you were sent to Hong Kong, a privileged point of observation on mainland China. Then it was still widely thought that a large part of Chinese catholicity, under pressure from the civil authorities, was being lead toward creating an independent national church. What was your experience in this regard?

When I was a seminarian, I was impressed by the witnesses of fidelity to the Gospel that came from China. I had read the memoirs of Gaetano Pollio, the Archbishop of Kaifeng who had been imprisoned and expelled in the early years of the Maoist regime, later becoming Archbishop of Otranto, and then of Salerno. I admired how, in sufferings, he had served the Church and loved the Chinese people. Those events came back to my mind, after having been posted to Hong Kong. Those were the years of the opening desired by Deng Xiaoping. Now we see very well how far-sighted Deng’s vision was. The Holy See wanted that its own international position not be identified with Taiwan, where there is a Vatican embassy. So in Hong Kong a ‘Study Mission’ was opened which was to concern itself with the People’s China, apart from with the then British colony and Macao. It was the time when the Church in China was also being reorganized. The Holy See wanted to understand how the situation was evolving. And to show their closeness to the Chinese Catholics who showed their great desire to live their faith in communion with the Bishop of Rome. A bond of communion which the Chinese bishops had continued to confess even during the persecutions.

How did you regard the divisions existing in the Chinese Church between the so-called ‘official’ and ‘underground’?

The division was not the result of church dynamics, but of historical and political circumstances. It was a situation of suffering and trial. And you had to help the Church in China, both the so-called ‘underground’ area and the incorrectly named ‘patriotic’ one, to look at the situation from a future perspective. To make myself understood, at that time, I said that the situation of Chinese Catholicism was comparable to a spring whose water, at a certain point in its flow, became impeded, it was divided and found two paths in its flow. One part sought a way of continuing to flow outside. The other found a way of flowing beneath the surface of the earth. The two currents, arising from the same source, however, were destined to find themselves again in the unity of the sea. And the sea – I said then – is the heart of God. The two church communities, if they remained in the faith of the apostles, would then one day be found together united in Christ. Of course, since the two currents were separated there have been many complications. But I believe that sooner or later a solution will be found.

Then, as nuncio, you lived the crucial experience in Iraq. Where you also experienced the bombs.

I was there in the final period of Saddam Hussein’s regime, during which the UN-imposed sanctions to collapse the regime weighed in an incredible way. The voice of the Church was prophetic. We repeated everywhere only what we saw: that in fact the sanctions hit the people, and not the regime.

How do you now re-read the military interventions in Iraq and what followed them, for that area of the world and especially for its Christian communities?

The war in itself was wrong. You can not think of bringing democracy with war. At that time there were conditions for negotiations. Saddam had indicated to me also that this was his request. But like any leader, especially in the Arab world, if you wanted to deal with him you had to avoid humiliating him. The understanding of the situation was lacking. Christians suffered injustices under the regime, as did the whole society. But the regime, to maintain internal peace, at least protected freedom of worship. The war was not justified in terms of political and international justice. Because Iraq had not intervened in the 11 September attacks. And the issue of weapons of mass destruction was a pretext. A month before the bombing began, Saddam obtained from the assembly of tribal chiefs the approval of the law by which Iraq undertook not to develop weapons of mass destruction. We all said it was important that this happened, that it was a sign of his willingness to cooperate. But it was to no avail. Evidently, the war had already been decided. And already then you knew that chaos would come afterwards, and the war destabilized not only the small Christian community, but every aspect of life in the country, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. This is what we still have before our eyes.

After a brief period in the Philippines, you were called to Rome as Deputy Secretary of State. How were the rhythms and methods of working?

The deputy is one of the principal collaborators of the Pope. He answers directly to him and to the Secretary of State. For me it was a very nice period, especially because it gave me the opportunity to get to know Benedict XVI more closely and to have very frequent contact with him, who is a father, a teacher, and is extremely lovable. And those are the riches and the gifts of grace that those who received them carry with them always. And for which you can only thank God. The rhythms and methods, although challenging, were part of the office.

You are now Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. What are the criteria that orient you in the task that was assigned you?

The Congregation de Propaganda Fide is full of history. Those who work here must feel the great legacy of this department that has been and continues to be so important in helping the life of the Church around the world. Its first reason for being is to proclaim the Gospel everywhere. And given that the Church is now rooted also in many of those that were once the mission territories, Propaganda Fide continues to offer its services to the bishops, priests, religious and laity of those particular Churches. It thus contributes to expressing the “Pope’s solicitude for all the Churches”: an evocative formula, which always strikes me. Over time, the younger Churches also gain their own consistency in terms of seminaries, residences, schools, universities, health care in the towns and villages. The proclamation of the Gospel is also expressed in meeting the needs of populations. I see an ancient wisdom in the choice of having entrusted to Propaganda Fide the service and care in favor of new churches, not only with regard to what was strictly ecclesial, but also in supporting material works thanks to the Pontifical Missionary Works, the network born from the intuition of Pauline Jaricot, the venerable who died in poverty on the streets of Lyon just one hundred and fifty years ago.

Is the propagation of the faith comparable to a strategy of cultural and religious expansion?

The dynamics of evangelization itself come from Christ himself. He, the envoy of the Father, sent his disciples to proclaim the Gospel, first in pairs, and then again giving them this mandate fully and definitively before the Ascension. Expansion strategies respond to a commercial or political logic. The inner dynamism of faith, in truth, is not comparable to all of this. You can see it in action in the Gospels: when the first disciples met Jesus they asked to stay with him, to know him, to hear him: “Master, where do you live?”. “Come and see.” And they stayed with him. There was no strategy, no idea of expansion, there was the desire to know him, because no one spoke of God as he. Evangelizing is tiring. St Paul knew it well and our missionaries know it well. Evangelization pays a high tribute every year also in blood, but our missionaries, like the Apostle of the Gentiles, have the consolation of God, like St Paul, who, after many persecutions, had a dream in which the Lord said to him: “Take courage. For just as you have borne witness to my cause in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness in Rome” (Acts 23, 11).

As Prefect of Propaganda Fide, you find yourself once again dealing with the affairs of the Church in China. The government agencies continue to want to exercise forms of control over the appointment of Bishops. How can you deal with this problem?

You have to leave behind the erroneous idea that the bishop is an official. If you can not escape from this logic, everything remains conditioned by a political vision. To become a party or government official there are determined criteria. Those used for the appointment of a bishop are different. And this characteristic should be respected. What we are asking everywhere, not only in China, is that the bishops be good bishops, worthy of the task that is entrusted to them. And that is that they be men of God who are also capable of an overview on the life of their particular church, to confirm the brethren and ordain priests in the faith and the grace of God. A particular, spiritual suitability, and a psychological maturity, which also involves balance and prudence ,are needed. In the selection of bishops that also occurs in China these are the criteria that are dear to the Holy See. Knowing well of course that the bishops are citizens of their own country, and, as such, must be loyal to their homeland, giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but not at the expense of giving to God what is God’s. As successors of the apostles, it is required of them to be faithful in all things to the Church’s doctrine. This is not an ‘order’ of the Pope. The faithful want it first of all. It is the faithful who actually then judge the suitability and dignity of their own bishops: they love them or marginalize them. The precious good that is dear to the Pope and the pastors in China, and that is asked of us by the Lord, is the pastoral care of the people of God, who in China have an extraordinary sensus fidei, purified by years of suffering.

What is the role of the Holy See in relation to the Church in China?

The Church is a reality of communion. It is not a top-down structure, where the only problem is to pass on the orders that arrive from above. The Magisterium doesn’t have the duty to affirm certain ideas or beliefs of the Pope or the bishops. Its proper function is the salus animarum, it is to confirm the people of God in faith and fidelity to Christ, it is to live in communion with the whole Church, in fidelity to the Pope. In China, as elsewhere, where difficulties occur, we must intervene, and perhaps correct, if necessary. But also in this process no one decides by himself. There is the concurrence of the faithful, the consent of priests and bishops. The Church lives in this world and walks in history. It is essential also that on relations with the civil and political realities, bishops, priests, religious and faithful help the Apostolic See by providing elements for evaluation. The only thing that can not be done is to separate and oppose the Successor of Peter to the bishops, or priests to bishops, and maintain the unity of the people God. Here the speech of Lumen Gentium returns: if the Church is the People of God and the Body of Christ, the elements that belong as much to its tradition as to its living reality can not be placed in contrast.

Benedict XVI has proclaimed a Year of Faith. How will you and your department be stimulated by the prospect suggested by the Pope to the whole Church?

We, as a Congregation, look to the Year of Faith from the perspective of the first announcement. And we believe that the Year of Faith is first and foremost a year when we must pray for faith, that is, ask the Lord for the gift of it. Without this, all our works and aid networks that embrace the entire world, especially the missionary, would also lose their raison d’etre. Because of this we thought of a small concrete sign: we will dispense a simple rosary whose intermediate beads between one series of ten beads and the other will be of different colors to represent the five continents, to thereby signify that that series of ten beads is particularly dedicated to the needs of evangelization and of faith in that continent (the colors are: white for Europe, red for America, yellow for Asia, blue for Oceania and green for Africa). We will distribute it all over the world, gathering requests and adherence also through the internet. So whoever wants to, can pray to the Mother of Jesus for the proclamation of the Gospel in every continent. I like to think of the invitation, at Cana in Galilee, that Mary addressed to the servants: “Do whatever he tells you”. If we listen to this call, we are confident that the Lord will not fail to bestow on His Church the best wine of faith throughout the world.

Let’s return to St Augustine

Interview with the Patriarch of Venice Francesco Moraglia by Gianni Valente

“We will not be able to offer appropriate responses without a new acceptance of the gift of Grace, we will not know how to win men over to the Gospel except by returning ourselves first of all to a deep experience of God”. Thus, Benedict XVI spoke to the Italian bishops’ meeting in plenary session, on 24 May last. As the Year of Faith approaches, the Successor of Peter never fails to suggest the only thing that he really seems to have at heart. These are confused times, to be regarded, however, with “a grateful look because of the growth of good grain even in a land which is often arid”. Times when even the current ecclesiastical reality seems to make more evident and luminous the words of Jesus: “Without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15, 5). “I am with you always, even until the end of the world” (Mt 28, 20).
In this framework Monsignor Francesco Moraglia lived the early stages of his ministry as the new Patriarch of Venice. His answers, in the interview that follows, are a simple aid to live the forthcoming Year of Faith as a propitious time. Clearing the field of any risk of ecclesial ‘self-occupying’.

Benedict XVI during his journey to Portugal, said: “Often we are anxiously preoccupied with the social, cultural and political consequences of the faith, taking for granted that this faith is present, which unfortunately is less and less realistic”. Then he called for a Year of Faith. What did the Pope want to suggest by this?
FRANCESCO MORAGLIA: Summoning the Year of Faith, the Holy Father has always wanted to indicate what is always – therefore even today – the foundational reality of the life of the believer and the Church, that is the faith.
It is precisely the conception we have of faith that will determine the consequent way of understanding Christianity; and faith, being the beginning of the Christian life, then, what the evangelist Mark says about the parable of the sower is valid for faith: if you do not understand this, how can you understand all the other parables? In short: depending on the idea that we have of faith, one kind of Christianity or another originates and spreads.
The newspapers are saying: this Year is to ‘revitalize’ the faith. But is this in our power? Are we – the Church, the Pope, or the faithful – the artificers of our faith?
The Church, the Pope, the faithful, as well as theologians, are not at the origin of the act of faith and of the life of the believer.
For this we must pay attention to the way we speak. In the human and ecclesial ambience language is of prime importance; now, speaking of the Church only or primarily in terms of programming, as well as reducing evangelisation to a matter of language, leads ineluctably to think that, in the end, it is men who are at the origin of the act of faith. Thus everything is reduced to a human operation. But this – considering it carefully – is the transposition, in pastoral terms, of the thought of Pelagius; in my view, today more than ever, the name of Augustine must resound, to whose school all of us, pastors and faithful, must return.
To return to your question: the Church, the Pope and the faithful can – properly speaking – revitalize the faith, first of all, by placing it with renewed strength at the center of Church life and proposing it as a way of life, better, as the serious case of the Christian.
How does faith begin? Can it be the result of an educational plan that makes the religious sense of man emerge?
I limit myself to saying that faith, since it is the conclusion of grace, is a pure gift! I would not like, in fact, especially given the actual context, that by softening the force of that affirmation to end up – as I said – by describing faith in too human terms. Certainly, the expression: faith is pure grace, should be understood in the sense that faith is always offered to us in a human way or, that is, by consulting with our freedom and never precluding it, as with our responsibility.
How do you keep, nurture and increase faith? How do you not lose it? Is it a question of tenacity?
Faith is maintained simply by living it every day in the company of the Church; day after day, therefore, there it is nurtured and grows belonging to the world of faith and renewing every day the choice of faith; in other words, letting oneself be carried by the faith and remembering that – in the concreteness of life – in the end, everything is a gift for the Christian. Certainly, to discover oneselves creatures and to rejoice in being so, to perceive ourselves in our own persons and in our own history as part of a whole, of a project that always precedes and accompanies us, this is, we can say, grace at work. I find particularly effective the expression used by Benedict XVI in Porta fidei: “Faith grows when it is lived as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience of grace and joy ...”.
When we speak of faith, the appeals to the Spirit, to Grace, to Jesus, sometimes appear as ritual forms, premises obligated by ecclesial ‘jargon’, before moving on to the ‘true discourse’ where the emphasis is placed on strategy, on the formula to adopt, on the educational plan entrusted to us.
Sometimes it also happens that these references are almost entirely absent from the language of one who professes himself a Christian! So the fundamentals of baptismal life are missing. This is an even more serious matter if we think that language is the highest form of expression of a person’s culture; in some catechesis, for example, the confession of Jesus the Savior was transformed into Jesus understood as a master, then friend, then as a spiritual force.
But if faith, which in a person’s and the Church’s life is essentially a gift and fulfillment, is degraded to this dimension, and everything tends to be pastoral planning and human construction, harnessing the Spirit in organizational decisions, then even salvation becomes a fact of pure theological design and pastoral organization. Examples can be multiplied, here I will limit myself to indicating one in a celebrative liturgical field: the creative hyperactivity and a certain protagonism in front of the assembly.
In many speeches, faith is identified e contrario, as if its affirmation was primarily a response to trends and cultural currents of the modernity in which we live. What do you think of this type of approach? Faith has as its first expressive attitude the cultural rebuttal of non-faith?
Yes, it is true, the risk indicated actually exists.
Faith, above all, must be true to itself, that is it must say Jesus Christ, say it well, say it to everybody, say it in an understandable way and begin with – as we learn from Verbum Dei – the Word of God transmitted by the Church.
The criticism that was addressed to some manuals coincided precisely with allowing itself to get caught up by certain ‘issues’ that it wanted to refute, ending up, however, by reducing or even distorting, in an unacceptable manner, the truth of faith which, in itself, it wanted to announce.
Specifically, to take advantage of the occasion of the Year of Faith, what should be done? Take initiatives? Make speeches?
Faith is the response to a person – the person of Jesus Christ – so the speeches, conferences, seminars alone are again insufficient before the human-divine reality of faith; they would be sufficient were the faith to locate itself, exclusively, on the human level, if it were a pure ethical choice or a philosophical dissertation. Faith, however, asks to be cultivated and experienced in its sacramental reality, namely, its human and divine reality.
I am convinced, therefore, to give an example, that a more intense participation and a more careful education in the liturgical celebration, on the part of the People of God – pastors and faithful – in view of a renewed life of charity towards God and one’s neighbor, would be a suitable proposal, a correct starting point, in view of the Year of Faith.
This has to do with, I repeat, involving the whole ecclesial community in the event of Easter – death/resurrection – of Christ; in this way we are immediately conducted to the center of the salvific event which can only be gathered in faith; the heart of the Eucharistic act is characterized, precisely, as mysterium fidei.
If faith is a gift of grace, at the beginning and at every step of the way, what does this mean for the Church, for its condition and its dynamics?
It involves many things. I will indicate one which, however, seems to aid in understanding: I allude to the use of the possessive adjective ‘our’, placed before the noun Church; this is a mode of expression that says, closeness, affection, sympathy toward the Church but if you don’t have the awareness to keep it united to another expression: ‘His’ Church, the risk is to make us consider the Bride of Christ as our creature, our product, a human achievement that, in the end, precisely because it is ‘ours’ we can always and newly reconstruct or deconstruct at will. Instead, the Church, above all, is His, that is Christ’s Who, according to the beautiful symbolism of the early patristic centuries, then recovered in the Middle Ages, is the sun, while the Church is placed as the mysterium lunae and is completely illuminated by the sun.
Sometimes, even in our recent ecclesial events, this perception of the wellspring of the Church seems to become obscure for many Christians, with a type of reversal: from reflection of the presence of Christ, we pass to perceiving the ecclesial complex as a reality committed to attesting by itself its own significant presence in history. And such attestation of itself is presented as a way of ‘demonstrating’ the credibility of Christianity. What can these dynamics lead to?
If you lose sight that the Christian event is something real and historical, dealing with flesh and blood, then this fact leads us to a ‘spiritualist’ vision that can no longer intercept the real man made, in fact, of flesh and blood.
In this way, if you lose sight that the Church is the Body of Christ, then, in every situation, the Church will be in search of its legitimacy and affirmation, becoming self-referential. Think about the two disciples of Emmaus who, not aware of the Risen Lord, continue to talk about their problems, their sorrows and fail to open their eyes on Him and see Him.
It is the ever possible drama of the self-reference of the Church, that means: loss of its sacramental identity; the Church, in fact, Vatican II again reminds us, in Lumen Gentium, is a sacrament of Christ and, thus, the obfuscation of such reality is not trivial.
Similarly, sometimes it seems that the intention of attesting the faith in the world is to be entrusted to extraordinary or even spectacular initiatives.
But to set out along this road is to be in conflict with what Jesus said and did in the Bible, and with the same realities of human life, made up of everyday gestures. The Church, in this way, would self-destruct; you can not live, in fact, by extraordinary things, but by ordinary things: the things of every day; the Gospel is not for a few elect and not made up of things experienced only once. On the contrary, it is a matter of salvation every day and for every man.
The beginning of the Year of Faith coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of Vatican Council II. Some attribute directly to this event the crisis of faith, coming to interpret it as the origin of the regression of Christianity or even as a tool of penetration of non-Catholic thought into the Church. What do you think about this?
My ordination took place in 1977, so I can speak of having been born theologically and as a priest after the great ecclesial event of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. If we reread the texts of the Council, if we interpret its spirit by the letter and not against the letter, if we don’t launch ourselves in statements such as ‘out of loyalty to the Council it is necessary to go beyond the Council’ (a phrase in which everyone can find what time and again, they like best), then we cannot but consider the Council as a true grace for the Church of our time. Also here, once again, Benedict XVI has indicated the main road to us talking about the hermeneutics of reform in continuity and distancing himself from any hermeneutics of rupture.
The Year of Faith has its precedent in that declared by Paul VI in 1967, which culminated in the proclamation of the Creed of the People of God. How did you personally experience that period, how do you remember it?
Then I was a teenager, I was fourteen; I remember well, however, that there could be perceived in the media, and consequently in society, the growth of a climate of suspicion and certainly contrary to the magisterium of the Church. There clearly appeared the attempt to divide the ecclesial structure, contrasting the magisterium – especially that of the Pope – to that of the faithful, considered the true People of God. It was forgotten, or perhaps it wasn’t wanted that it be remembered, that Lumen Gentium, speaking of the People of God as the holder of the prophetic and charismatic power, says, quoting Augustine: “The universality of the faithful can not err in believing ... ‘when from the bishops to the last of the lay faithful’ (cf. St Augustine, De praedestinatione Sanctorum 14, 27: PL 44, 980) it shows universal agreement in matters of faith and morals”. Those were years when, with opportune catechesis, more support and accompaniment should have been given to the faith of the simple in the face of the overwhelming power of specialists.
The Year of Faith coincides with an economic crisis that is sweeping even the affluent society. Some will say that refuge is being sought in the spiritual to endure material problems. What does the faith, for example, have to do with the loss of work that is also in Italy causing anguish to millions of people?
This corresponds to a wrong idea of faith, those who take refuge in faith only so as not to succumb to material problems; the believer, in fact, is one who adheres to the Lord Jesus apart from the fact that things, humanly, go well or badly.
Faith, ‘especially’, is not about something that is collateral to man. The human being is not already complete in himself, regardless of his relationship with Jesus Christ. On the contrary, faith is what brings the human to completion respecting him in his specificity and autonomy.
That said, faith certainly provides support in a particular way to those who are experiencing hardships, helping them to live them and put them into a broader perspective; with this, however, faith does not relieve the believer from the obligation of taking all the steps that humanly must be taken and that are in his power to do.
In an anecdote that circulated in the theological context, some years ago, it was said that a ship was sinking, and then the captain ordered: “The atheists to the pumps, the believers to pray!”.
You were born and raised in Genoa and are now the Patriarch of Venice. Is there any particular feature that distinguishes and unites the faith of the people of the sea?
The love of their own history and the connection to their own roots, the keeping alive of the memories and traditions, the value given to popular religion and, again, understanding the meaning of life as a journey, of going towards a goal. So, ultimately, a great openness to the future and to others. On the other hand, the sea unites the shores of different countries and continents, the sea makes possible communication between people through meetings and trade but particularly cultural exchanges; and finally, the sea, precisely in its own immensity, becomes a symbol of God and His infinity.
And what would you say, of your faith? How has it blossomed? What events and encounters nourished it?
My faith as assent to realities believed is, today, the same as that of so many years ago when I was preparing for first communion and when I was an altar boy; I consider this a wonderful thing because it says once again the truth of the Gospel. I refer to Jesus’ invitation: let the children come to me; the faith, thus, appears – as it really is – for all: children and adults, simple and learned, rich and poor; here, in a real sense, all the ‘democratic nature’ of the faith appears.
The manner of adherence, then, does not touch the substance of the act of faith that is, precisely, in grace, adherence to the mystery and not cultural elaboration. Precisely for this reason, the different and multiple ways of adherence, more or less cultivated, do not touch the faith itself, that is, the yes that saves.
And what indications will you give to all to live the Year of Faith?
The indication is to rediscover the faith in its own characteristics, overcoming every possible reduction and distortion. The risk is to make it an intellectual or sentimental reality, no longer grasping it as a salvific event that leads to the fulfillment of humanity; man can not do it by himself and faith allows him to fulfill his humanity; faith completes what my being a creature only glimpses and predicts.
Therefore, the indication of method that Jesus gave to his own, when he called them to the apostolate, is fundamental. When asked: Master, where do you live? Jesus responded by inviting them to follow him. We, too, at the beginning of this Year of Faith, as the first thing, need to rediscover the life of the Church as a sequela Christi. This has to do not only with living in the Church but, as Romano Guardini said almost a century ago, the Church. And to do this it is crucial to recenter oneself in a more authentic prayer – especially liturgical prayer – and rediscover the humble gesture of pilgrimage, a sign of a common walk towards the goal, which is the Lord Jesus, the beginning and completion of our faith.
Pope Luciani, he also Patriarch, gave his first catecheses as Pope on faith, hope and charity. In what way can his figure offer ideas for edification in pastoral activity?
This year marks the centenary of his birth, and we will attempt to celebrate it in a worthy manner. For some he was considered rigid or even criticized for being too faithful to the Pope and his magisterium. In fact he tried until the end to compose matters and find solutions to problems. And, more than thirty years after his death, a very vivid memory of Luciani remains in the people and parishes. The Venetians, both of land and sea, retain a grateful and affectionate remembrance of the passage of this patriarch. They remember him as a man of God, a pastor who has left a mark among the people, also with the concreteness of his homilies and his capability for dialogue and listening.

Having seen the Pope praying

by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran

Recently, a professor at the University of Tunis, addressed his students this way: “Be careful not to let your pens fall, because otherwise the knives will remain in your hands”. It is a wise warning. The more precarious the situation is, the more dialogue is necessary, because there is no alternative. Certainly we Christians – in the schools, universities and hospitals that we maintain in the Muslim-majority countries – take care to witness the love for all without distinction or conditions, and our Muslim friends sincerely appreciate this attitude. Day after day, working in this Pontifical Council, I rediscover a dimension sometimes set aside: our Muslim friends respect people who pray. A liturgy or a Eucharist well prepared and well celebrated constitute a good Christian witness. I will always remember when I was in the Secretariat of State, what an ambassador of the Islam religion told me, when he came to make the traditional farewell visit: “After three years of mission to the Holy See, what most impressed me is not your political position on the Middle East or the prestige of pontifical diplomacy, but to have seen the Pope praying”. I think this is an invitation for us to always be people of faith, not to be afraid to express it. Obviously there may be external obstacles (discrimination on religious grounds) or also internal (ignorance, sin) that make our witness be not always bright.

It is important that whoever enters into dialogue has a clear idea of the content of their faith and a well-defined spiritual profile: there can not be a dialogue based on ambiguity. Unfortunately, many young Christians have a superficial idea of the content of their faith; that is why it is a great blessing to have a Pope like Benedict XVI, who knows how to witness and teach that our faith is not a feeling or emotion – maybe it is also, in some moments – and certainly not a myth. Jesus Christ existed, was a man among men, he lived at a time and in a place historically determined by history, he died and rose again. Pope Benedict also tells us about the balance between reason and faith. In a homily in Germany, he said: “Faith is simple. We believe in God – the beginning and end of human life. In that God who enters into relationship with us human beings”. But he wondered: “Is it something reasonable?”, and specified: “We believe that at the beginning is the eternal Word, Reason and not Unreason” (Holy Mass in Regensburg, 12 September 2006).

Alongside faith and reason, friendship is also important. Interreligious dialogue is not a dialogue between religions, but between believers called to testify in the world today that man does not live by bread alone. It all begins with respect to finish with a respectful friendship. When we are faced with someone who believes and prays differently from us, it is first of all necessary to take the time to look at him, to understand his spiritual aspirations; then afterwards we will review what distinguishes us and what instead unites us. And if there is a common heritage, then it is up to all of us to offer it to the surrounding society, because religious dialogue is not meant for my community, but for the other, for that of my interlocutor. Dialogue is an opening that calls us to approach the religion and culture of others with delicacy.

What helps me most in my work? The admirable witness of the Christians who I have had the grace to meet in countries in the Middle and Far East and recently in Africa. Their convinced adherence to the faith, their loyalty to the Church, the filial affection they have for the Pope, all this is a great help for everyone. Jesus is there in these small communities. It is the faith of simple people, ready to welcome the bishop who visits them, to ask for a blessing, because they know through an intuitive faith that the Church is a family.

Of course, after my ordination I did not imagine having to live out my priesthood practicing dialogue, at first ‘diplomatic’, today ‘interreligious’, even if, on the pictures of my priestly ordination, I had printed the words of Paul to the Corinthians: “In the name of Christ... we are ambassadors, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2Cor 5, 20).

Interreligious dialogue has allowed me, I must confess, to deepen my faith, because when I ask another how he lives his faith, I know that tomorrow I will be asked the same question. In today’s pluralistic world, we are increasingly called to account for the “hope that is in us ... but always with respect and kindness”, as recommended by Peter (1 Pt 3, 15-16).

Recently I was in Nigeria, and I was invited to visit a vocational school, founded by a priest, where children are welcomed for two years, both Muslims and Christians. I admired the mutual respect they showed, the joy of being together and also the religious dimension that that priest was able to instill in them, without relativism or syncretism.

I am convinced that it is possible to live together in societies ravaged by so much violence and to be, as believers, ferments of forgiveness, reconciliation and of peace.

Finally, more than once I have been asked if ‘Don Tauran’ can bear witness within his institutional commitments.

I do not know if my life has been a credible witness, but after my ordination I have always been inhabited by a conviction: I must always be first a priest, whatever the circumstances. The important thing for a priest but also for the faithful is that, through our daily lives, those who do not know Jesus, can ‘guess’ His presence in our midst. Hence the importance of a united and missionary Church.

In a few days in Rouen I will deliver the panegyric of Joan of Arc, and meditate on some phrases that she uttered before she died. I would like to mention one that I learned from the very years of the seminary: “Dieu fait ma route / God traces my path”. The important thing in the life of every Christian, and even more so for a priest or a bishop, is to cultivate the inner freedom to allow God to realize, despite our limitations, His plan to gather all mankind together in one family.

(Text assembled by Giovanni Cubeddu)