Being Christian

Giulio Andreotti

I mention here incidentally an ongoing debate, this time concerning maternity by artificial insemination. The absence of legislative norms was very serious; and though what we had before us was an imperfect document, many of us voted for it in the two Chambers, declaring a willingness to improve it later. The secularist reaction against this law is in full flow with signatures being gathered for a referendum to annul it...

Among the people to whom I owe the basic lessons of my youthful education there was a priest who at the time seemed paradoxical to me, but whose intelligence and depth I was later to understand more and more. Among other things he would often say that among the Ten Commandments of Moses the more important maxim is the precept: «Take not the name of the Lord in vain».
I was thinking about it in recent weeks in connection with the salvo of arguments that, beginning casually with the “European” venture of Rocco Buttiglione, poured out in complex disputes on the political freedom of Catholics, on the politics-religion relation, on a kind of call to arm to the populations at large against Islamic expansion; and so on. Nor is the hangover from the omitted mention of the “Christian roots” in the text of European Constitution unrelated to the picture; though there is a Christian reference in any case, in the date, because 2004 belongs to the calendar of the years of the Lord (when Latin was in use it went Anno Domini).
On the connected matter of the role of Catholic intellectuals in Italian society there was a study conference in Genoa organized by the MEIC (Movement of Catholic graduates) that well matched the arguments I mention above. On the one hand, in the long wake of Benedetto Croce, many claimed they couldn’t call themselves Christian; but, conversely, a secularist front is growing, very polemical – sometimes subtly, in other cases in harsh tones– towards avowed Catholics.
What was said in Genoa was specifically focused. Any concern of a practical, so to speak, political sort was outcast.
It’s true: among the younger levies constituting the backbone of Christian Democracy in the post-war period (along with the survivors of the popular pre-fascist battles) many came out of the FUCI (Federation of Catholic university students) and from the graduates’ Movement, who in Catholic Action represented qualitative nuclei as different from the “branches” based on large-scale organization. The minutes of the constituent Assembly testify to the contribution of men who knew how to listen to and get listened to, so as to reach syntheses of mediation at the highest level with those who represented the other two currents present in Parliament: the liberals and the socialist and communist left.

The Giulio Cesare hall of the Capitol during the official speeches before the ceremony of signing the European Constitution, held in the Orazi e Curiazi room on 29 October 2004

In one of the most delicate battles in that period, on the definition of relations between Church and State, we deputies had as external interlocutor Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini in person. He was qualified to be such not only by his post in the Secretariat of State, but because at the moment of the Peace Conference he had blocked American and Irish proposals to give international guarantees to Vatican City, demeaning, if they had been accepted, the role of the Italian nation. Montini’s saintly stubbornness won over even the Honorable Togliatti who, with a very highly motivated declaration before voting, dissociated himself, in this case, from the socialists and from the variegated front of anticlericals. It was 25 March 1947, feast of the Annunciation made to Mary. Unfortunately it was impossible to create that atmosphere in the two battles on the divorce and on abortion in which we were beaten in Parliament and in the outcome of the referendum.
I mention here incidentally an ongoing debate, this time concerning maternity by artificial insemination. The absence of legislative norms was very serious; and though what we had before us was an imperfect document, many of us voted for it in the two Chambers, declaring a willingness to improve it later. The secularist reaction against this law is in full flow with signatures being gathered for a referendum to annul it. I give my opinion that a concerted effort should be made to try to avoid this referendum; naturally within the limits of morally acceptable corrections. Opposition to this attempt derives from a mentality that already in the two painful referenda mentioned led to painful and resounding defeats for the Catholic world.

The <i>Madonna with Child</i> in the Giulio Cesare hall

The Madonna with Child in the Giulio Cesare hall

I remember the futile effort that some of us made in the quest for possible negotiations: distinguishing civil marriage from that set out in the Concordat (keeping the rule of Canon Law over the second kind) and working on a wider interpretation of abortion for medical reasons, which of course was very delicate.
The ongoing debate hinges on a more complex theme and one on the other hand of lesser practical resonance. But the campaign of those in favour of a referendum seems almost to ignore the specific issue because of Pannella’s summoning of anticlericals of all origins and backgrounds to be united for the “No” vote.
Adriano Ossicini, authoritative honorary president of the National Committee for the Bioethics, wrote for us on the subject, in the last issue [of the Italian edition of 30Giorni], the well-documented article, the circulation of which should help free people from all the closed-mindedness that upsets or even prevents the comparing of opinions. Ossicini spent a long time in the Senate and his qualifications were valuable in getting rid of prejudices and in opposing claims with no scientific validity. We feel his absence today, not least because he belonged to those genuine parliamentarians for whom objectivity and dialogue are inescapable, and disinterested, qualities.
Relations with the Moslems remains a burning issue and is particularly important (and will ever more be so) because of the considerable immigration that has occurred. The prevention of terrorism is unjustly made a part of it because it is arbitrary to connect the two spheres. There are a great many non-Moslem terrorists and a great many Moslems are not terrorist. Forecasting the “danger”, and giving as reason the fertility of Moslem women and also polygamy (forbidden in any case by due respect for our legal ordinances) muddies the waters.

… I give my opinion that a concerted effort should be made to try to avoid this referendum; naturally within the limits of morally acceptable corrections. Opposition to this attempt derives from a mentality that already in the two painful referenda mentioned led to painful and resounding defeats for the Catholic world

The defense of civilization and of Christian traditions has been taken up by some writers and related cultural circles with a polemical force that knows no limits.
Even if, as in the case of Oriana Fallaci, the Church is presented as a business group and Saint Bernadette is mocked by attributing to her, as her only merit, that of having brought a flow of tourists to Lourdes. It’s chilling. That she take it out on me personally, writing fantastically about my role in convincing Paul VI to allow the construction of the mosque in Rome, is not important. The rest is.
Some years ago, involving the daughter of Sadat, the assassinated president of Egypt, we set up a “trialogue” among Christians, Jews and Moslems. We were unsuccessful because the political biases turned out to be insuperable. The outcome of an initiative by the Pio Manzù Center was no different. The Moslem speaker required as a preliminary a declaration against the State of Israel and everything finished there.
One also comes across the difficulty of finding valid interlocutors. The famous University of the Cairo once seemed suitable, but the politicization of the Nasser period prevented extra partes discussion. New interreligious forums are being sought but the absolutist tendency displayed by some Christians - or self-appointed champions of Christianity – is an obstacle, as is the scarce enthusiasm of any counterparts.
Contemporary cultural trends should nevertheless prevent incommunicability. And one can work in that direction. But there’s something more.
The wisdom of European statesmen in the second post-war period gave rise to agreements first as Community and later as European Union. The development of the relative area and the further foreseeable expansion concern us also as Catholics.
Members of the FUCI and graduates understand today how farseeing and precious was the training received in Pax Romana, in the quest for encounter and developmental prospects, comparing traditions, training, experiences.
Unfortunately we are faced with a perverse conception according to which modernity consists in the refusal and in the absence of rules, even of the laws of nature.

The Rome mosque

Let us not retreat into one-sided attitudes, but let us defend the guidelines consecrated in the Constitution of the Republic on the family founded on marriage, on the freedom of teaching, on the safeguards against obscenity (also through preventive measures). And it’s well to remember that the Constituent Assembly itself, before closing its operations in January 1948, passed a law on the press and was concerned about the effects of the gutter journalism and the sort capable of disturbing the sensibilities of teenagers. All signs of what we could describe as naturally Christian.
In parallel stands social sensitivity. It was no accident that Montini’s training scheme included participation by the university students in the activities of the Saint Vincent Conferences. But there is more.
According to the pontifical teaching strongly re-affirmed by Pius XII, peace is the fruit of justice. The contribution of Catholic intellectuals hence shows itself in the tendency to contribute to making society ever less unjust, here and elsewhere; through agreements, co-operation in development, ad hoc international bodies. Those who saw us only as necessary (even barely tolerated) in the defense against communism; and thought that talk of reforms was a shrewd propaganda expedient understood nothing about our public project. We don’t ask privileges and we only want the freedom to be able to perform – in the possible ways and formulas– our mission; never in opposition to general interests.
It is not important to call oneself Christian. The main point is to try to be so and to respect those who order their lives in that way, in the family, in their callings, in the public arena.
The country priest I remember often ended his Sunday sermon by stressing the Gospel warning that it is not those who cry: «Lord, Lord» who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.