Returning to the Lateran

To the understandable satisfaction at having passed in fair shape the threshold of eighty-five the emotion has been added of having the honorary degree in utroque iure unexpectedly conferred upon me in this glorious athenaeum, that long years ago I had to abandon, shortly after the start of the courses in Canon Law, having been called by Monsignor Montini and Aldo Moro to work at the top of the Italian Catholic University Federation (of which I was later president). Already to follow courses at the only state university involved, in those conditions, difficulties and toil. However I still have sharp memories of some lectures here: in particular by Father Kurtscheid and of two future cardinals: Father Coussa and the then Monsignor Ottaviani. It was not, however, a total break, because I graduated at the Sapienza University of Rome under the direction of the illustrious Lateran Professor Pio Ciprotti, with a thesis – having abandoned my studies on the Papal Navy – on the figure of the offender in penal Canon law; a subject that helped me later, as a politician, to concur with the theory according to which punishment must not be a remedial revenge by society, but a means of rehabilitation and of social recovery of people. Hence the logic of the abolition of the death penalty and the life sentence.
But, coming through your gates today, my thoughts went a little less far, back to those months between September 1943 and June 1944, when the Upper Seminary opened its doors to wrench from the fury of the Germans occupying Rome more than a hundred people being hunted for other reasons - among whom some ministers of the Badoglio government who had not got away with the royal caravan – many politicians particularly exposed; and also General Roberto Bencivenga, military representative of the liberated part of Italy.
Under the guide of the unforgettable Monsignor Ronca and of his immediate colleagues (I should mention Don Claudio Righini and Don Pietro Palazzini) everything took place in a mixed atmosphere of charity and conspiracy. The maximum prudence was also urged – in his confidential contacts with the Vatican – by the understanding German ambassador to the Holy See von Weizsaecker (so different from his “Roman” colleague von Mackensen). We were then sorry to see von Weizsaecker tried at Nuremberg along with the most ruthless Nazi leaders. When his son became president of Federal Germany some of the Lateran escapees sent him messages of gratitude in memory of his father.
A priest working in the Secretariat of State, Don Emanuele Clarizio, shuttled back and forward from the Vatican, almost the only bearer of news and contact between the refugees and the outside. In little car in which he went about, one day the Honorable Longinotti was exceptionally hosted as visitor, an old fellow member of Parliament both of De Gasperi and of the father of monsignor Montini. Otherwise the seclusion of the guests, each of whom had been given the name of a real seminarian, was very strict.
It was an expedient to evade the attention of the staff, though I don’t believe they can have credited the existence of so many adult vocations. De Gasperi had become Don Alfonso Porta, who was later parish priest of San Vitale.
Later the editor of Il Messagero Mario Missiroli, who was trying to gain the sympathy of the Holy Father for the socialist leader Pietro Nenni, was told by Pius XII that, when the lively leader from Romagna was at the Lateran, he used to blaspheme. But that was denied to me by De Gasperi.
Whereas it is true that Nenni, not attending the mass celebrated by Monsignor Ferrero di Cavallerleone, kept the radio on loud in a nearby room during the service, I don’t know whether in order to create a disturbance or simply so as not to hear the chanting and the sermon. Admonishment from the old Prime Minister Ivanoe Bonomi didn’t have much effect.
De Gasperi had asked and got permission to attend mass also on weekdays; Don Palazzini said it for him.
When the S.S., in breach of extraterritoriality and ignoring the prudent advice of the ambassador, burst into the Benedictine cloister of Saint Paul Without the Wall up and the Lombard Seminary at Saint Mary Major, the Lateran “cargo” was in part wisely reduced. De Gasperi was able to move into the house of Monsignor Costantini at Propaganda Fide, while General Bencivenga was involved in a complex incident. In the wing of the Seminary where they were installed two officers had set up a secret radio-transmitter, that had been intercepted. Monsignor Ronca had to make a formal declaration that the general had left his refuge. And it was true. But he moved only a few yards, finding lodging with one of the canons of the Basilica.
Various falsifying historians who attribute little concern or worse to Pius XII for the persecuted, should at least mention these courageous oases of freedom that, among other things, saved the lives of so many democratic politicians who were to have leading positions in the governments of the Liberation and in the Italian Parliament. Perhaps it’s not whimsical to attribute to these and to other “Seminarians of Mons. Ronca” and “protégés of Pius XII” an important contribution towards getting beyond the barrier of that intransigent secularism that had for so long characterized Italian life, burdened by pontifical vetoes and continual anti-Catholic provocations.
I was thinking of these things on the morning of 14 November 2002 when the Holy Father John Paul II made his historic, much celebrated visit to the Italian Parliament. But already in September 1970 – the centenary of Porta Pia – Angelo Dell’Acqua, the Cardinal Vicar of His Holiness, had significantly been invited to take the place of honor at the speech in Parliament by the President of the Republic Giuseppe Saragat. More than positive signs that the passage of time, even if sometimes too slow, rights the balance and rectifies history.
To the Rector Magnificent of this University, Bishop Rino Fisichella, I address a particularly grateful thought in that, while engaged in the development of his pastoral and cultural tasks, he has generously kept the rectorship of the small parliamentary church of San Gregorio Nazianzeno, where he continues, in the daily mass, to ask divine blessing on our work as representatives of the Italian people.
I thank him warmly also for what he had to say of me this evening, after the generous and gratifying introduction of the Grand Chancellor Cardinal Ruini.
To have learned that my ad honorem degree has had the approval also of the Holy Father arouses inexpressible emotion in me. This is to be added to the many actions of kindness received from His Holiness, including an unexpected warm message in his own hand when five years I began (to use his terminology) the ninth decade of my life.
But we are all indebted to the Pope, especially for his continual reminders of fundamental values, the weakening of which has caused and continuously causes mankind wounds and conflicts, because of which our contentment that, after the slaughterous first two wars, a third world war has not occurred, is unfortunately much diminished.
At every gathering – political, cultural, trade-union – there is continual deploration of the profound injustice in the sharing of economic global resources, overwhelmingly in the service of just a fifth of mankind. But the programs aimed at reversing the trend through substantial international plans for cooperation – often solemnly announced with figures given – do not manage to take off to any significant extent. While the scale of arms production and of the related trade continue to expand at an appalling pace.
Reference to the link between justice and peace has always been vibrant in the magisterium of the popes. John Paul II, taking the example of Pius XII whose motto was “Opus iustitiae pax”, and of Paul VI who introduced the novelty of the solemn New year Message to heads of state and government, decided for the start of this year 2004 to remind us that in 1979 he began with the admonition that «to achieve peace requires educating for peace». And then he listed, year by year, what he described as his Spelling-book of peace, adding with force that: «In order to win, the struggle against terrorism cannot exhaust itself in repressive and punitive operations only». And he has warned us that: «Political choices that seek success without taking into account the fundamental rights of man would be unacceptable, because [he insisted] the end does not justify the means».
The Holy Father continues to pay particular attention to the need to reform the United Nations Organization as an instrument for the prevention of conflicts and for the progressive reinforcement of the fundamental rights of citizens and families.
I would also like to stress what the Pope said last week in his speech accepting the credentials of the new Italian ambassador to the Holy See: «My fervent hope is that the Italian people may constantly move forward along the way of prosperity and peace, maintaining intact the heritage of religious, spiritual and cultural values that have made its civilization great».



Stalin mockingly asked how many divisions has the Pope. I believe that John Paul II has reinforced, if one may so say, the strategic potential of the Church by setting before us the expressive figures of the new contemporary saints: from Padre Pio to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, from Max Kolbe to José Maria Escrivá de Balaguer.
Let us pray to God that, despite any physical aging, he may continue to make joyful the moral youth of this Pope, come from far away, but so near to the heart of so many people throughout the world who look to him in order not to despair and to continue to believe with determination in the ethical primacy of peace.