The African continent:humanity’s spiritual“lung”

The second pastoral visit of Benedict XVI to Africa

Reflections of Cardinal Robert Sarah

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Directed by Giulio AndreottiIn the Church and in the World Directed by Giulio AndreottiIn the Church and in the World

Supplement: a Meditation on Christmas

nella Chiesa e nel mondo nella Chiesa e nel mondo

Cover:

An African girl praying

EDITORIAL

Don Giussani and the presence of the laity in theChurch— by Giulio Andreotti 4

COVER

THE SECOND PASTORAL VISIT

OF BENEDICT XVI TO AFRICA

The African continent: humanity’s spiritual “lung”— by Cardinal Robert Sarah 22

IN THIS ISSUE

YEAR OF FAITH 2012-2013

A gift, not a possessionInterview with Cardinal Walter Kasper

— by G. Valente 30

EASTERN CHURCHES

“Ours is the faith of the apostles, handed down by St Thomas” Interview with George Alencherry,

Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church

— by R. Rotondo and G. Valente 42

ECCLESIASTICAL COLLEGES OF ROME

The India that is in the heart of Rome— by P. Baglioni 48

REFLECTIONS OF A GERMAN POLITICIAN

The Pope remains faithful to himself:bear witness to your faith— by Hans-Gert Pöttering 54

TALES FROM THE MISSIONS

From the Valtellina to the Andes — by G. Ricciardi 58

REVIEW

The loyalty of the Christians and the tolerance ofRome— by L. Bianchi 64

FEATURES

LETTERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD 10

SPIRITUAL READING 14

30DAYS IN THE CHURCH AND IN THE WORLD 36

330DAYS N. 10 - 2011

EditorialGiulio Andreotti remembers Don Luigi Giussani

EDITORIAL OFFICES

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Pierluca Azzaro, Francoise Marie Babinet, Pina Baglioni, Marie-Ange Beaugrand, Maurizio Benzi, Lorenzo Bianchi, Massimo Borghesi, Lucio Brunelli, Rodolfo Caporale, Lorenzo Cappelletti, Gianni Cardinale, Giuseppe Frangi, Silvia Kritzenberger, Walter Montini, Jane Nogara, Stefania Falasca, Stefano M. Paci, Felix Palacios, Tommaso Ricci, Giovanni Ricciardi

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The original Italian issue was signed off

by the editorial office on 7 November 2011

This English edition was printed in November 2011

3OGIORNInella Chiesa e nel mondo

Director Giulio Andreotti

PHOTO CREDITS: Godong/Corbis: Cover; By kind concession of Father Marko Ivan Rupnik: p.7;Fototeca Messaggero di SantʼAntonio: p.15; Foto Scala, Firenze: p.17; Osservatore Romano:pp.22,30,33,36,42,54-55,56; M.Merletto/Nigrizia: p.23; Paolo Galosi: pp.23,24,46,48,49,50,51,52;Associated Press/LaPresse: pp.25,40,41,57; AFP/Getty Images: pp.25,26,27,29,43,47,55,57; PepiMerisio: p.28; Foto Felici: p.29; Romano Siciliani: pp.30,40,41; Franco Cosimo Panini Publisher bylicense Fratelli Alinari: pp.31,32,35; By kind concession of His Beatitude George Alencherry: p.44;National Geographic/Getty Images: p.39; Reuters/Contrasto: p.39; By kind concession of FatherVarghese Kurisuthara, Rector of Saint John of Damascus Pontifical Institute: p.49; MichaelHorowitz/Anzenberger/Contrasto: p.52; James Estrin/Redux/Contrasto: p.52-53; Shobha/Contrasto:p.53; By kind concession of Don Mirko Santandrea, Postulation of the cause of beatification andcanonization of the servant of God Daniele Badiali: pp.58,59,60,61,62; LaPresse: p.65.

NO. 10YEAR 2011Y

ear

XX

IX Contents

p. 4

My personal acquaintance with DonLuigi Giussani goes back to the late

’eighties/early ’nineties, but I had known who hewas for some time especially because I was awarethat someone had finally responded to a certainideological climate in the universities, and especial-ly in Milan, and my reaction to the knowledge waspositive. We had the feeling at the time that Milanwas much subject to student protest and the formsthat politics took were of the lowest kind. Therewas much fear caused by the activities of the Red

Brigades, the knee-capping and the murders, butthere also were very disturbing right-wing fer-ments. There was the illusion in public institutionsthat the democratic method, to which we were at-tached and which we absolutely did not want toabandon, would in the long run be able to combatcommunism on its own but in that moment, per-haps, it was no longer enough, and when the vio-lent people thought they would be able to come outon top, it was from Don Giussani and those whofollowed him that the shift came. In fact Giussani’sactivity was a kind of turning point, a u-turn: nolonger acquiescence with the dominant ideologybut not the opposite reaction either, that is, visceralopposition to communism.

Before speaking of Don Luigi, however, I wouldlike to clarify a point: Don Giussani’s experiencehas been seen by many, mistakenly, as competingwith the Catholic Action of those years. I alwaysthought it was a wrong reading even then because,from what I sensed from the outside, Giussani nev-er started out from opposition to anything but outof something positive.

Catholic Action had always been an organizationconsisting of men, women, young people, aspi-rants, children, and two movements: graduates anduniversity students (FUCI [Federation of ItalianCatholic University Students, ed]). During the Fas-cist period this form of organization had done quite

by Giulio Andreotti

Editorial

4 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Don Giussani and the presenceof the laity in the Church

Don Giussani and Rose Busingye

well because it allowed a tad of independence andpride in difference without creating difficulties. Andit was important that it had been given that capillary,almost ‘regimented’, form. I remember that duringone of the celebrations of Catholic Action youth (the‘brown berets’) at the Foro Mussolini, the socialistSaragat said: “I want to come and see”, and he wasvery impressed. The insight of Pius XI had provedright in creating the movement and the branches,but in keeping the parish as the basic element.Then, as time passed one glimpsed a certain weari-ness. That did not mean that the workings of theparishes had no point, but the transmission of expe-rience and training had broken off. A decade ago, atthe centenary of the FUCI’s foundation, I was al-most shocked because the basic formulation thatemerged was: ‘Let’s be clear that we are not a move-ment for training but for research’. But that was nothow it had been for us who grew up in the FUCI! Forus, the main purpose had been precisely training:the liturgy, the study of the Old and New Testament,a courageous presence in the universities, close col-laboration with other students and staff – by whomwe had to make ourselves esteemed in terms ofquality – and then international connection throughthe “Pax Romana” and a social awareness cultivatedwith the welfare missions in the Conference of StVincent. In this regard, I often remember that I oweto the poor families of Pietralata – where we wentwith the St Vincent – some of the most importantlessons for life I have learned.Giulio Andreotti and Don Luigi Giussani ¬

Before speaking of Don Luigi, however, I would like

to clarify a point: Don Giussani’s experience has been seen

by many, mistakenly, as competing with the Catholic Action

of those years. I always thought it was a wrong reading

even then, because, from what I sensed from the outside,

Giussani never started out from opposition to anything

but out of something positive

530DAYS N. 10 - 2011

In the most glorious years of Catholic Action, asCardinal Angelini can testify, the mass demonstra-tions had also shown some strength and were use-ful, but they were bound up with a historical mo-ment: the same mobilization of the Civic Commit-tees in 1948 had a specific purpose, and broughttogether Franciscan tertiaries, university profes-sors and housewives. But these events, while posi-tive, if out of context, were a kind of antidote, andthe risk was that the only criterion of import wasthe numbers, the mass, considered everything,while the individual, according to the dictates ofthe extra-Catholic ideology of the time, was notconsidered at all.

Don Giussani, I said, gave the feeling of non-compliance, of not being afraid. He gave the im-pression that one could react, even ideologically,by bringing ideas, training, updating. By looking atCatholicism in other countries and at what washappening in the world. Don Giussani brought in-novation with an approach that I think he had clearfrom the beginning, but introduced gradually be-cause, perhaps, an immediate, direct preaching ofit, like the one I have heard, could certainly stir fas-cination, but also needed one to be prepared. Anda certain evolution there was.

Another point: Giussani, the works of Commun-ion and Liberation, the presence of lay Catholics insociety. Allow me to make a comparison, think ofMartha and Mary in the Gospel. Mary listened toJesus and, if Martha had not been busy in thekitchen – even though no one would starve to deaththat night, however, since Jesus was with them –some problem there would have been, becausesomeone had to make dinner. One of the first timesI witnessed a meeting between the upper ranks ofCL and Giussani, I was reminded of that episode inthe Gospel, because even though I was impressedby the atmosphere of the meeting and what wassaid, I seemed to glimpse a distinction, a differencebetween Don Giussani and the works, the Compa-

ny of the Works [CL’s business association ed.].Those were a wonderful and positive thing, butit seemed to me that he recognized himselfmore in the figure of Mary. So it was a wise andpositive thing that someone handle the organi-zational aspects, what interested him, however,was something else. I once heard a lecture of hison the concept of works that, if it not be deep-rooted and supported by great ideas, it withers,dries up and dies. I was struck by the centralpoint of his observation which was in no way acriticism of works. However he said: ‘Take care,we must not be taken over only by materialthings’. This theme is just as pertinent today thatwe see a certain ‘depression’ in universities – butalso in other areas of daily life – and a certainliveliness has again faded.

A third element: Giussani had a particulargift for communication, but at first I could notgrasp the spirit. I got there in time, because atfirst it was as if he were speaking a language dif-ferent from mine: he said splendid things, thatremained in the heart, but I didn’t have the keyto an understanding of those things. He had acharismatic expression, that certainly, you sawthat he was different, that there was somethingdifferent in him. Were I to compare him tosomeone, I would say Mazzolari but also DonGnocchi. There was something different aboutthem, they always acted in a wider perspective.Whereas I am a bureaucrat by nature, I’mdrawn to value everyday administration. I’ve al-ways thought that the most deserving ministersare those who instead of struggling with anumpteenth reform try with humility to get theexisting mechanism to work.

Jesus with Martha and Mary,

detail from the mosaic

Table of Bethany, by Marko Ivan Rupnik,

refectory of the Centro Aletti, Rome

Editorial

6 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

¬

730DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Editorial

And two things helped me to a fuller under-standing of Giussani. The first was hearing the fu-neral eulogy made by Ratzinger at his funeral. Iwas very impressed because the then CardinalRatzinger gave an exact portrait of Don Giuss-sani. It wasn’t just a funeral speech, one could seethat he very much felt what he was saying and, inmy opinion, some policies of the pontificate arerecognizable in the model of apostolate that DonGiussani indicated. From the way he spoke at thefuneral and also later, one glimpsed that it was notonly admiration, or friendship that bound him toGiussani, but also agreement of the model ofChristian life to preach.

Just a note on this point: to me Ratzinger is atruly modern pope and the criticism that he right-ly aims at the false idea of modernity which todayprevails is, I think, the very one that Giussanitaught. Our generation was not taught to dealwith the idea that modernity consists only in nothaving rules. While on the economic and socialfronts we were sufficiently prompt – I’m thinkingof the Code of Camaldoli, I’m thinking of themodernity of the land reform – on other fronts wewent for certain things because they seemed asign of modernity, without foreseeing the long-term consequences. I’m thinking, for example, of

the change in the code of the articles on mar-riage, where the concept of head of the house-hold, the authority, disappears. We have sufferedthem out of not wanting to seem dated.

It lies there: Giussani and Ratzinger are peo-ple who can point out a road. And not all of thegreat figures of Catholicism, leaving aside theirpersonal faith, have this gift. For example Lazza-ti, who will undoubtedly be in heaven because Isaw him sometimes at early morning Mass, in theChiesa del Gesù, and he seemed truly in ecstasy,however – I say this with the consciousness offaith I have as a true-bred Roman – I wouldn’t saythat he managed to give direction to the CatholicUniversity.

And two things helped me to a fuller understanding

of Giussani. The first was hearing the funeral eulogy made

by Ratzinger at his funeral. I was very impressed because

the then Cardinal Ratzinger gave an exact portrait

of Don Giusssani. It wasn’t just a funeral speech,

one could see that he very much felt what he was saying and,

in my opinion, some policies of the pontificate are recognizable

in the model of apostolate that Don Giussani indicated

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger during his homily at Don Giussani’s

funeral, Milan Cathedral, 24 February 2005

8 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

But, coming back to Don Giussani, the otherthing that enabled me to understand him betterhas been attending many times in recent yearsMass in the Basilica of St Lawrence Outside theWalls, celebrated by Don Giacomo Tantardini, apriest who has always shown admiration and de-votion towards Don Giussani, presenting him al-ways as the reference point towards which tolook. Many times since I became Director of30Days I have happened to attend those Satur-day evening Masses, at baptisms, confirmations,and each time I saw something unique: studentsand workers, young married couples holding chil-

dren by the hand going up together to receiveCommunion, something truly paradisaical. I’veasked myself, thanks not least to a striking coverof 30Days dedicated to Lourdes in 2008, if this isnot the future of Christianity, the model of thelaity for the coming years. Certainly it has enabledme to understand and become more in tune withthe words heard in the past from Don Giussani.

(Speech for the XV International Congress

‘On the Holy Countenance’,

held at the Pontifical Urban University

on 22 and 23 October 2011)

930DAYS N. 10 - 2011

But, coming back to Don Giussani, the other thing

that enabled me to understand him better has been attending

many times in recent years Mass in the Basilica of St Lawrence

Outside the Walls, celebrated by Don Giacomo Tantardini,

a priest who has always shown admiration and devotion

towards Don Giussani, presenting him always

as the reference point towards which to look

The cover of 30Jours, no. 1 - 2008,

Don Giacomo Tantardini

and Don Giussani

in St Peter’s Square, Palm Sunday,

Holy Year, 23 March 1975

MEXICOPERPETUAL ADORERS OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico

We are enthusiastic to return to Gregorianchant, especially in the solemnities

La Paz, 4 August 2011

Dear Mr Director,Praised be the Blessed Sacrament!Please receive a warm greeting from these distantlands of Baja California Sur, where we constantly re-

10 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

F or some time letters have beencoming to 30Days not only from

cloistered convents and monasteries,from missionaries, from seminaries,but also from bishops and priests,from male and female religious, fromsimple faithful from all parts of theworld. We therefore considered it ap-propriate to entitle this section ‘Let-ters from all over the world’, distin-guishing it by the image of Jesus withthe apostles Peter, James and Johntaken from the Last Supper, one of thenew mosaics on the façade of theBasilica of the Rosary, in Lourdes,made by Father Marko Ivan Rupnik SJ,on the occasion of the hundred andfiftieth anniversary of the apparitionsof Our Lady to Bernadette. The choiceof the image of Jesus with his beloveddisciples at the Last Supper wishes tosuggest how these letters also are asmall sign of the great mosaic of Eu-charistic communities in which thesacrifice of love of Jesus is made pres-ent, as mentioned by Pope BenedictXVI on Wednesday 26 October.

A great many letters arrive eachmonth in the editorial offices. We aresorry not to be able to publish them all,and we apologize to those concerned.We do assure, however, that all are readand that we attempt to respond to all,where possible, and to fulfill the re-quests that may be contained in them.

Letters from all over the world • Letters from all over th

1130DAYS N. 10 - 2011

ceive your beautiful magazine 30Giorni, throughwhich we come to know the most diverse news of theChurch and of the world. For this we thank you and allthose who work in the editorial staff.

We want to thank you for the book ‘El Hijo nopuede hacer nada por su cuenta’, and the one with theCD of Gregorian chants, which gave us the enthusi-asm to return to Gregorian chant especially in thesolemnities.

We are a community of twenty-one nuns; last year thefounder of the community, the Reverend Mother MaríaAngélica, and Sister María de San José returned to theHouse of the Father, so that, 46 years after its founda-tion, only one of the founders remains in the community.

We greet you, assuring you of our prayers and offerour congratulations on the magazine,

The Mother Superior Luisa Beltrán C.

The images of the paintings that illustrate the pages of ‘Letters from all over the world’ and those of the ‘Spiritual Reading’ are taken

from the frescoes of the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua. Above, the Crucifixion, Altichiero, chapel of St James

he world • Letters from all over the world • Letters from all over the world •

MALAWISACRAMENTINE SISTERS OF NTCHEU

Ntcheu, Malawi

We ask for a contribution towards buildinga hostel for poor or orphaned girls

Ntcheu, 22 August 2011

Dear Mr Andreotti,While I was in Italy for a short time, I was lucky enoughto find and read your wonderful magazine 30Giorniand to appreciate the contents.

How great is our need also, who reside in missionlands, where the news never arrives in true perspec-tive, to learn the keys to understanding what’s hap-pening in the world and to know what is beautiful inthe world of the Church!

That’s why I take the liberty of addressing you toask whether my community can also get a copy ofyour magazine, which I consider an important meansnot only of information but also of training!

I also allow myself to make another request of you:our mission is dedicated to education, convinced thatoffering instruction and education is the best way tohelp a country to grow in the direction of a slow but re-spectful progress of human dignity. We would like tobe able to accommodate close to the school of thelarge suburb of Nsumbi (in the diocese of Mangochi) ahundred orphan or extremely poor girls, to enablethem to attend school regularly and devote time tostudy, which is still rarely possible in their villages.

We are working on building a hostel to accommo-date them all year round, and therefore dormitoriesand a kitchen with a dining hall also, so that they mayfind an environment essential for a dignified andpeaceful life.

Everything is becoming so difficult in Africa, evenmore so in these times when it seems that the injusticeson the weaker multiply to the point that our project

meets ever new obstacles all the time! Only the certain-ty of the need for this work on behalf of the women ofAfrica gives us the courage not to give up, even if thecosts are multiplied beyond the predicted budgets.

We ask, if possible, for a contribution to further atleast in its essentials this great work that still remainsto be done.

For any information, we can keep in touch by tak-ing advantage of this e-mail address: sisters -ntcheu@africa-online.net.

Thank you as of now for all you may succeed in do-ing for us and we remember you before the BlessedSacrament in our daily adoration.

With much appreciation and gratitude,

Sister Ornella Sala and the Sacramentine Sisters of Ntcheu

PORTUGALFRATERNITY OF SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Beja, Portugal

We are a Franciscan fraternityliving in the south of Portugal

Beja, 7 September 2011

Peace and good!Through a friend I received the magazine 30Dias,which I read and reread several times. I liked it im-mensely because it gives a very complete vision of theChurch and the world. Congratulations on your mag-azine. God be praised for your work of evangelization.

We are a Franciscan fraternity living in the south ofPortugal, in one of the poorest dioceses in the coun-try, the diocese of Beja.

We would really love to receive your magazine,which would be very useful for our mission and for thetraining of the young monks of our community, butwe have no possibility of paying for it.

Our community is mainly dedicated to evangeliza-tion in the Alentejo region.

We’d love to receive a copy of the booklet Quemreza se salva for each brother, but it is a little expen-sive for our community which is made up of eight con-secrated young men who, in poverty and joy, pro-

12 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Letters from all over the world • Letters from all over th

1330DAYS N. 10 - 2011

claim the Gospel of peace and good.I greet you, giving you the assurance of our prayers

for all of the editorial staff of this magazine which is avaluable tool for the Church.

A fraternal embrace,

Father Ricardo Borges

Beja, 19 September 2011

Peace and good!We want to thank you for sending the booklets Quemreza se salva.

It is a very well written prayer book and will be veryuseful for our apostolate of evangelization. We look

Imago Pietatis, Altichiero, chapel of St James

he world • Letters from all over the world • Letters from all over the world •

¬continued on p. 18

14 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Trust!

It is the hand of Jesus

that guides everything...

Saint Theresaof the Child Jesus

Let us not grow

weary of praying.

Trust works miracles.

Saint Theresaof the Child Jesus

Invitation to prayer

The editorial office of 30Days invites all, and in particular the consecrated per-

sons of the cloistered convents and monasteries, to pray for Don Giacomo Tan-

tardini. For some months he has been undergoing treatment for a lung tumour.

May the Lord grant us to pray with trust for the miracle of a cure. We ask the prie-

sts who appreciate and cherish 30Days to celebrate Holy Mass for this intention.

We ask of parents the charity of encouraging their children to pray.

Sp i r i tua l Read ing • Sp i r i tua l Read ing • Sp i

1530DAYS N. 10 - 2011

The passage of the Gospel we have heard(Lk 9, 57-62) is always a comfort to me. Atbottom, in many ways, it says only one

thing: that the initiative in following Jesus does notcome from man, but it is of Jesus. No one can takeby himself the initiative to follow Him. “It was not

you who chose me, but I who chose you” (Jn 15,16). The initiative comes of the Lord. It’s His firstand foremost. Man may allow himself to be at-tracted, but cannot take the initiative by himself.

This topic, in the few and wonderful Wednes-day sermons of Pope Luciani, was like a re-

Padua, Basilica of the Saint, Wednesday 28 September 2011,

Holy Mass on the thirty-third anniversary of the death of Pope Luciani

Homily by Don Giacomo Tantardini

¬

r i tua l Read ing • Sp i r i tua l Read ing • Sp i r i tua l Read ing • Read ing

Our Lady of

the blind,

Stefano da Ferrara

“In the humble,grace shines out more”

16 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

frain several times repeated. In the sermon onfaith, after reading out a poem in Roman dialectby Trilussa, he said: “This poem is beautiful as po-etry, but it is bad as catechism”, because, said thePope, faith is not born of man. Faith is the gift ofJesus. This is so true that Jesus said: “No one cancome to me unless the Father who sent me drawhim” (Jn 6, 44. 65).

No one can go to Jesus, if Jesus does not drawhim. Faith is the grace of the Lord. And in his ser-mon on charity he said just that: “I don’t go, un-less God takes the initiative first”. We by our-selves do not set out, we do not take any initiativeby ourselves. The initiative is of the Lord. If hedoes not begin, we do not set out. If He does notattract, we do not follow Him. In those four won-derful sermons, the fact that the Christian life isgrace, is the initiative of grace, and that our re-sponse is the correspondence to this attractioncomes like a refrain.

But, re-reading these Wednesday sermons,the thing that struck me most this time was thatmany times the Pope said: “Pray for this poorPope”. He used the expression “poor Pope”:“Who knows whether the Holy Spirit helps thispoor Pope...”. “When the poor Pope, when thebishops, priests propose doctrine...”. And again:“I see here, close to me, brother bishops, andthen there’s this poor Pope”. How beautiful is theexpression “poor Pope”! Maybe now I under-stand why the good Cardinal Gantin, comment-ing on the conclave that elected Pope Luciani,said simply: “We were all delighted”. Luciani’selection was no surprise, it was predictable, butthey were all very glad, because a poor person, ahumble person had been elected bishop of theChurch of Rome. To a poor Church, a humbleChurch, to a Church that is a small flock, a poorPope, a humble Pope had been given and, there-fore, they were all delighted. Because, as St Am-brose says: “In the humble grace shines out more

/ In humilibus magis elucet gratia”. In the poor,in the humble grace shines out more. And whengrace shines out we are all happy. When what theLord does shines out we are all happy.

So we remember this poor Pope thirty-threeyears after his sudden death. We celebrate thememory of this poor Pope. Of this “poor Pope”,poor and therefore great in the eyes of the Lordand in the eyes of his saints. We celebrate himhere in Padua, in the basilica of St Anthony.

“Si quaeris miracula / If you seek miracles”,the hymn says, “pray to St Anthony”. So, alongwith Pope Luciani, together with our friends inheaven, all the saints in heaven, let us pray espe-cially to St Anthony for miracles, for all miracles.Today in the breviary, in Vespers, there was thissentence of St Peter: “Cast all your worries uponhim because He cares for you” (1Pt 5, 7). Youhave to ask for all miracles. You have to ask for allthe graces. In recent months – and I say this forthe love and the friendship that binds us – manytimes, even when fear and anxiety have surfaced,I repeated this phrase: “Jesus I offer you, Jesusheal me, Jesus, make me humble”. You have toask all miracles, the miracle of healing for exam-ple. All miracles.

But the image of St Anthony with the baby Je-sus in his arms suggests that all miracles are askedwithin this embrace. “None beside you delightsme on earth” (Ps 72, 25). Outside this embraceof Jesus, outside the embrace of Jesus, outsidethe sweetness of Jesus, one does not ask any-thing. Inside this sweetness – as when Anthonyhad the baby Jesus in his arms – one can askeverything. Like the small child, who asks every-thing of its father and mother. Inside that sweet-ness, in that embrace: None beside you delightsme on earth”.

So the first thing to ask for is this more thanwonderful familiarity with Jesus. It is the sweet-ness of communion with Jesus. “God is faithful,by whom you were called to the communion ofhis Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1Cor 1, 9). Howsweet is this communion!

St Anthony carries the child Jesus in his arms,but it is Jesus who carries Anthony. How manytimes do I repeat this prayer of St Ambrose afterCommunion: “Veni, Domine Iesu, / Come,

Sp i r i tua l Read ing • Sp i r i tua l Read ing • Sp i

1730DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Lord Jesus, / ad me veni, / come to me, /quaere me / seek me, / inveni me / find me, /suscipe me / take me in your arms, / porta me /carry me”. When you are led by the Lord, thenyou can ask for anything. Thus, in this recent pe-riod of my life, a brief prayer from the Song ofSongs (2, 16) came back to mind from the timewhen young, I entered the seminary, that says:“Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi qui pascitur in-ter lilia / My beloved is with me...”. My beloved,because the Lord Jesus is beloved of the heart.My beloved is with me, and we poor sinners, be-cause of renewed grace, can say: “And we are

with Him who grazes and delights among thelilies”. With Him who alone is holy, who alone isLord. Tu solus sanctus, Tu solus Dominus. Theonly one who loves us with a love so sweet, sotender, that the love of a father and mother is asmall image of this love.

Let us call upon the saints, let us ask Pope Lu-ciani, let us ask Saint Anthony, let us ask DonGiussani, let us ask the saints in heaven that theyalso make us on earth experience the sweetnessof being loved by Jesus, and within this sweet-ness, let us ask for all miracles. All miracles,which serve to keep and to live the faith. q

Our Lady enthroned, Giusto de' Menabuoi

r i tua l Read ing • Sp i r i tua l Read ing • Sp i r i tua l Read ing • Read ing

forward to a few copies of yourmagazine, to which you havebeen generous enough to offer usa subscription. Only God can re-ward you for your very great gen-erosity.

We greet you assuring you ofour prayers for you.

Father Ricardo Borges

CHILESALESIAN MISSIONARIES

Catemu, Chile

Thanks from Tierra del Fuego

Catemu, 8 September

Dear esteemed editorial staff ofthe magazine 30Giorni,

A reader of your magazine writes to you. I receiveit regularly, and I find that it is well done, useful andkeeps us united to the Church.

May the Lord bless you for this work you do for thebenefit of readers, especially those who are far away. Iam a Salesian and I’m in Chile, in Tierra del Fuego.

Congratulations on the CD with the songs for thetraditional Latin Mass, accompanied by a bookletwith the texts: wonderful! I remember with a certainnostalgia the years of my youth when Latin was useda great deal in the liturgy.

Now, to maximize to the fullest advantage thecontents of the magazine, I ask you the favor ofsending it to me in Spanish, so it can circulateamong the people, since only I can read the Italianedition.

Here one copy comes for Joseph De Marchi (whohas moved permanently to Italy).

Let me give you my best wishes for the continua-tion of this work, and for you my remembrance inprayer, and my greetings.

Ardiccio Fusi

18 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

The announcing Angel,

Chapel of St James

Letters from all over the world • Letters from all over th

continued from p. 13

1930DAYS N. 10 - 2011

COLOMBIATHE POOR CLARE SISTERS OF BELLO

CONVENT

Bello, Colombia

Thank you for Quien reza se salva

Bello, 24 September 2011

Dear Mr Giulio Andreotti,Please receive our fraternal greetingsof peace and good, with abundantblessings of the Lord for the wonder-ful work of evangelization you carryforward through the magazine30Días.

In recent days we have received tencopies of the booklet Quien reza sesalva. You can not imagine our joy atseeing the principal prayers of Chris-tians collected in a booklet, that wewill share with the new religious andfaithful who accompany us during theliturgical celebrations in our convent.

With our sincere remembrance inprayer we follow you closely, sharingwith you and with your collaboratorsthe spiritual treasures that we have re-ceived from the Lord.

We hope to receive soon the magazine 30Díassince we consider it a valuable spiritual tool that helpsus grow in faith and in the vocational response we giveto God from the contemplative life that unites us.

May God bless you and may the Blessed VirginMary always encourage and comfort you with thestrength of the Holy Spirit of God.

With renewed affection and gratitude,

The Abbess Sister Margarita María of the Sagrado Corazón, OSC, and Community

SOUTH KOREACAPUCHINS OF THE SOUTH KOREA CUSTODY

Seoul, South Korea

From the Capuchin friars of Korea

Seoul, 27 September 2011

Pax et Bonum.First, thanks for the two free copies of the monthlymagazine 30Days. Our brothers are very happy to beable to read it. ¬

he world • Letters from all over the world • Letters from all over the world •

The Virgin of the Annunciation,

Chapel of St James

I am Brother Anthony Choi, a Capuchin friar ofthe Custody of Korea. I am a seminarian studying forthe priesthood. Here in the monastery, which housesthose who go to the seminary, there are altogetherthree Korean brother seminarians and an Irish priest.

Our Custody was founded by the Irish provincein 1986 and this year the Silver Jubilee occurs. Inour Custody there are sixteen brothers and twopostulants.

If it were possible for you to send us 30Days free,our brothers would be very happy.

But if you can not, that’s okay. We understandyour situation.

I will remember your families and your friends inmy prayers.

Please remember the Capuchin friars in Korea.God bless you,

Anthony Choi

ITALY

We live just twenty metersfrom the small church where the remainsof Blessed Don Serafino Morazzonerepose

Chiuso di Lecco, 7 October 2011

I have been subscribed for many years to yourbeautiful and important magazine from which I‘drink’ of ecclesiastical culture, politics and not only!

Today, on the arrival of No 7/8, on page 70, Iread the article by Giovanni Ricciardi entitled ‘Thegreatness of smallness’, the figure of Blessed DonSerafino Morazzone, cited by Manzoni in thePromess Sposi (Fermo and Lucia).

What a surprise! We live just twenty meters fromthe church dedicated to St John the Baptist in the

district of Lecco, where the remains of the blessedrepose!

Also, just to give the possibility to those who comeon pilgrimage to find a place of refreshment and anovernight stay, we opened a bed and breakfast whoseinternet address I allow myself to send to the editorialoffice: www.bebtralagoemonti.it.

Renewing my wish that 30Giorni can be evermore a magazine of success, I cordially greet you.

Mara Assunta AnghileriAurelio Brusadelli

FRANCEDOMINICAN NUNS OF NOTRE-DAME DE CHALAIS CONVENT

Chalais, France

I assure you of my prayersand those of my Community

Chalais, 8 October 2011

Dear Sir,Thank you for 30Jours! It is magnificent and it is a joyto receive news about the Holy Father and what hap-pens in Italy. I am a Dominican nun. My family is orig-inally from Rome and the Abruzzo region. I do notspeak Italian, even though my name is DomenicaBenzi, Dominique in French. Thank you for what youdo, in sending us the magazine. I assure you of myprayers and those of my Community, on whose be-half I am writing. I pray for you and for those whowork for the magazine that we love.

Renewed thanks,

Sister Dominique, OP

20 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Coronation of Mary,

Giusto de’ Menabuoi

Letters from all over the world • Letters from all over th

2130DAYS N. 10 - 2011

he world • Letters from all over the world • Letters from all over the world •

22 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Africa is truly honored bythis second pastoral visit ofthe Holy Father, Pope

Benedict XVI, who will soon trav-el to Benin. Without any doubtthis pastoral visit will encouragethe African continent to takehold, in responsible fashion, of itsdestiny, and will encourage it, as itgoes through so many ordeals, tostrengthen the faith of Christians

and recall the Church to its mis-sionary task. Africa is fully open toChrist. It has taken a great step to-ward Jesus Christ. At the begin-ning of the twentieth centurythere were only two mil l ionCatholics in Africa. Today, thecontinent numbers 147 million,with an impressive number of vo-cations to the priesthood and reli-gious life, and numerous conver-

sions to Christianity. But vast re-gions still do not know ‘the Gospelof God’ (Mk 1, 14).

The f irst Synod on ‘TheChurch in Africa and her evangel-izing mission’ and the secondSynod of the continent on ‘TheChurch in Africa in service to rec-onciliation, justice and peace’dealt in very serious manner andwith great commitment with the ¬

by Cardinal Robert Sarah President of the ̒Cor Unumʼ Pontifical Council

The African continent:humanity’s spiritual“lung”

The second pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Africa

Benedict XVI during histrip to Cameroon andAngola in March 2009;the Pope returns to the African continenton the apostolic visit in Benin, 18 to 20November 2011

C O V E R

Robert Sarah was born in Ourous in the archdiocese of Conakry in Guinea, on 15 June1945. Ordained priest on 20 July, 1969, he was then sent to Rome, where he obtained a

licentiate in Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University. In Rome, he widened hisknowledge at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, then going further into his studies with a periodat the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem. Back home, he was a parish priest,and then rector of the junior seminary of Kindia. Appointed archbishop of Conakry 13 August1979 he was consecrated on the following 8 December. He was then apostolic administratorof Kankan, president of the Episcopal Conference of Guinea and president of the RegionalEpiscopal Conference for Francophone West Africa (CERAO). In October 2001 he was ap-pointed secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, a post he held fornine years, up to 7 October 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI appointed him president of theʻCor Unumʼ Pontifical Council. He was created cardinal by Benedict XVI in the consistory of20 November 2010.

D. M.

Biography of Cardinal Robert Sarah

fundamental questions that worryand torment the whole Churchand the African peoples: evange-lization, inculturation, the Church‘family of God’ and dialogue as‘the Christian way of being insideits community as with other be-lievers’; justice and peace; recon-ciliation; the massive and power-ful influence of the media in thecultural, anthropological, ethicaland religious evolution of our soci-ety. These important issues werestudied and discussed in an atmos-phere of faith and prayer, exam-ined with humble obedience tothe Word of God and under theever-burning light of the Spirit,which accompanies us through-out history.

I am confident that with pa-t ience, determinat ion, thestrength of faith, and with thehelp of God, the African conti-nent will know peace, reconcilia-tion, greater social justice, and willbe able to help restore human, re-ligious and ethical values, thesanctity and respect of life fromconception to natural death, thegreatness of marriage between

man and woman, the meaningand nobility of the family, thatmodern societies – especiallyWestern ones, weakened by‘silent apostasy’ – ‘deconstruct’and make blurred and insubstan-tial. It will be able to help find Godagain, the sense of the sacred andthe reality of sin in its individualand social forms.

In addition to its fabulous natu-ral resources, Africa has extraor-dinary human richness. Its popu-lation is young and in constantgrowth. Africa is a land rich in hu-man life. Unfortunately, despitethe natural and human riches, it istragically stricken by poverty, in-stability and political and econom-ic unrest. It still experiences the ef-fects of domination, of contempt,of colonialism, a phenomenonthat – while apparently concludedon the political plane – is not ex-tinct: today it is more subtle anddominant than ever. Because ofthe technological, economic andfinancial weaknesses of Africa,the powerful and astute experts ofthe economic world have organ-ized the depredation and anarchic

exploitation of its natural riches,without any benefit to the peoplesof the continent. Africa is poorand without money, but buysweapons, with i ts natural re-sources to engage in wars foment-ed with the complicity of certaincorrupt, dishonest African leaderswho do not care about the terriblesuffering of their people, refugeesconstantly in flight from violence,bloody conflict and insecurity.

We must, however, thank God.Today Africa as a whole, seems tobe experiencing a certain calm asagainst the sharp tensions thathave marked the continent overthe past two decades. Although insome places the peace and securi-ty of populations remain fragileand threatened, and real progresstowards peace is perceptible.Now the war is over – or almost –we must take the path of reconcili-at ion. The second Synod onAfrica has come at the right timeto remind Christians that theymust be builders of peace and rec-onciliation. To help deal with thisimmense challenge, and this diffi-cult battle against poverty, foreconomic development and formore dignified and happier hu-man life in which the Church mustcollaborate with other institu-t ions, the Holy Father, PopeBenedict XVI, returns to Africawith the aim of reaffirming to theAfricans his full confidence intheir abi l i ty to get out au-tonomously from this long andpainful socio-economic and politi-cal crisis through work, unity andcommunion of souls, and to re-mind the Christians of Africa thatGod has reconciled us with Himthrough Christ and given us theministry of reconcil iation (cf.2Cor 5, 18). The Holy Father willst imulate the energies of theAfrican continent and, like a fa-ther, will push the Africans tocome out of the ‘reservation’ andto enter the great circuits of theworld to affirm and publicly mani-fest their cultural values and thepriceless human and spiritualqualities that they can offer theChurch and all mankind.

Of course, today most of Africais outside of the world’s great cir-cuits. It is easily left aside, margin-

24 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

The opening ceremony of the Second Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops,St Peter's Basilica, 4 October 2009

C O V E R

alized. Africa is a negligible link inthe worldwide chain, faced by aworld totally controlled by the richand powerful nations in all its eco-nomic, technological, military as-pects. All the armies of Westerncountries are deployed almost en-tirely in the poor countries of Asiaand Africa, bombing and destroy-ing buildings, thousands and thou-sands of innocent human lives, soas – they say – to maintain peaceand promote democracy. Iraq andits people have been destroyedand Saddam Hussein has beenkilled. Bin Laden has been slaugh-tered and tossed into the sea.Muammar Gaddafi has just beensuppressed with some othermembers of his family, and thememory of him has been doneaway with in the sands of thedesert. From the economic stand-point the Ivory Coast stood well. Ithas now been split in two and de-stroyed... I don’t intend to defendthese figures and their actions,which are certainly to be execrat-ed and condemned time aftertime. But it is barbaric and unfor-givable that civil powers join to-gether and treat human beingscreated in the image of God in this

way. And if those people were therobbers and dictators of their peo-ple, why fear that their graves willbecome places of pilgrimage?The same fate is perhaps awaitingother heads of state!

I do not know what God, in Hissilence, thinks of so much cruelty.

His heart, probably, is saddened.Forgive me this digression. It mustnever happen again that moneyand power become the gods ofthe world and that human lives areoffered in sacrifice to them. Thetruth will triumph. God alone isthe first and greatest truth.

2530DAYS N. 10 - 2011

¬

Above, Congolese and Rwandan childrenreceiving food aidfrom UN soldiers nearthe village of Kimua, in eastern Congo; left, militiamen in Pekanhouebli, on the border betweenLiberia and the IvoryCoast, April 2011

BENIN. The second pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Africa

Without truth, mankind cannotgrasp the meaning of life; he thenleaves the f ie ld open to thestrongest (cf. Benedict XVI, Jesusof Nazareth. From the entry intoJerusalem to the Resurrection).The law of the strongest, violenceand the wars of this world are thegreat problem and the greatwound in our humanity today!

The African continent hasbeen forgotten by men but not byGod, who clearly prefers the hum-ble and the poor and weak. Al-ready in 1995 Pope John Paul IIsaid “Africa can be compared tothe man who went down fromJerusalem to Jericho; he fel lamong robbers who stripped him,beat him and departed, leavinghim half dead (cf. Lk 10, 30-37).Afr ica is a Continent wherecountless human beings — menand women, children and youngpeople — are lying, as it were, onthe edge of the road, sick, injured,disabled, marginalized and aban-doned. They are in dire need ofGood Samaritans who will cometo their aid” (Ecclesia in Africa,no. 41). For this reason, strong intheir faith in Jesus Christ, thebishops of Africa have entrustedtheir Continent to Christ theLord, the true Good Samaritan,convinced that He alone, throughHis Gospel and His Church, cansave Africa from its current diffi-culties and heal it of its many ills.

Jesus Christ, His Gospel andHis Church are the hope ofAfrica, and Africa is the future ofthe world. The recent Popes thinkso, in the interpretation I give totheir words. And I think that theirpoint of view deserves credit be-cause it is expressed in the exer-cise of their prophetic role.

In the Old Testament, theprophets had the mission of read-ing, interpreting and commentingon the history and socio-politicaland religious events, not only ofthe people of Israel but also ofneighboring peoples. Of coursenow the popes, the successors ofPeter, continue this propheticministry of reading, analyzing andinterpreting the history of theChurch and the human, religiousand socio-political affairs of theworld.

And what do the recent popessay of Africa? They clearly ex-press what Africa is in the eyes ofGod and its present and futuremission in the world.

As Paul VI declared in Kam-pala in July 1969: “Nova PatriaChristi, Africa. The new home-land of Christ is Africa”. God hasalways had particular concern forAfrica, making it participate in thesalvation of the world. It was infact the African continent thatwelcomed the Savior of the worldwhen as a child He was forced toflee with Joseph and Mary toEgypt to save his life from the per-secution of King Herod (cf. Inseg-namenti di Benedetto XVI, V, 2,Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vati-can City 2009, pp. 416-417).And then it was an African, a na-tive of Cyrene named Simon, thefather of Alexander and Rufus,who helped Jesus carry the cross(cf. Mk 15, 21).

In 1995, Blessed Pope JohnPaul I I wrote in Ecclesia in

Africa , “ I have wri t ten yournames on the palms of my hands’(Is 49,15-16). Yes, on the palmsof Christ, pierced by the nails ofthe Crucifixion. The names ofeach one of you [Africans] is writ-ten on those palms” (Ecclesia inAfrica, no. 143).

And Benedict XVI in his homi-ly at the opening of the SecondSpecial Assembly for Africa ofthe Synod of Bishops, on 4 Octo-ber 2009 said: “Africa is the de-pository of a priceless treasurefor the whole world: its profoundsense of God… Africa constitutesan immense spiritual ‘lung’ for ahumanity that appears to be in acrisis of faith and hope. But this‘lung’ can also become ill. And atthis moment at least two danger-ous pathologies are infecting it:in the first place, a disease that isalready widespread in the West-ern world, in other words practi-cal materialism, combined withrelativist and nihilistic thought”(Insegnamenti di Benedetto

26 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

C O V E R

XVI, V, 2, Libreria Editrice Vati-cana,Vatican City 2009, pp.328-331).

Hence the importance and ur-gency of a deeper evangelizationof the mindsets, customs and cul-tures of Africa, an intense task ofstudy and appropriation of thefaith and of the Christian myster-ies. The training of the heart,

which makes possible the forma-tion of links of intimate friendshipwith Christ and promotes an in-tense life of prayer and frequentand personal encounters withGod, needs to be promoted andreinforced. To get there we havethe help, support and encourage-ment of African models of holi-ness we are called on to imitate:the martyrs St Charles Lwangaand companions, Blessed CyprianMichael Tansi, St JosephineBakhita, St Clementine Anuarite

martyr, and so on. But we alsohave another great Christian anda great African model who has justreturned to his Father’s house: thevenerable Cardinal BernardinGantin.

He was a man of God, a greatman of prayer, attentive to Godand man, and of a delicate humili-ty. This is what he recommends:

“Let your days be ordered, unitingrest and work, listen to the Lordand also to men, and then pray.Pray especially through the livingsign of the Eucharist, which is thedivine moment of God’s greatestlove for humanity” (homily for apriestly ordination, 19 November2005). Prayer was the pivot of hislife. He said one day to a youngpriest: “My son, we must pray alot. We must pray for forgivenessfor everything we could havedone, but that we could notachieve... Prayer, prayer; yes,prayer before everything and sole-ly... As we increase our tasks andresponsibilities, prayer must be-come more intense, longer, moreinsistent”. It must unite us closer toGod who works through our poorselves. And towards the end of his

life, he witnessed to itwhen he said: “I prom-ised Pope John Paul IIto consecrate the timeof my retirement tomeditation, listeningand prayer” (Goldenanniversary as bishop,Ouidah, 3 February2007).

Cardinal BernardinGantin was a faithfuland loving servant ofGod, the Church andthe Pope. A man ofgreat faith, totally in-fused with the love ofChrist. Submission,loyalty and love for theChurch and the Pope,that’s how he lived hisgif t and his humbleservice to God, whohad granted him thegif t of grace of thepriesthood. As a cardi-nal he described thathonor and priv i legethus: “What is a cardi-nal of the Church if not

a servant, minister of the Pope, ofuse, like the hinge of a door, ac-cording to its Latin root ‘cardo’,always happy and grateful to havebeen chosen solely to serve”(Homily for his thirtieth anniver-sary as cardinal, Cotonou, 27June 2007). He added: “All myChristian love is summed up inthese simple words: God, Jesus

2730DAYS N. 10 - 2011

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BENIN. The second pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Africa

Left, the city of Fallujah, Iraq, devastated by heavy bombing inNovember 2004; below the Syro-CatholicCathedral in Baghdad, scene of a bloodyattack in October 2010

Christ, the Pope, the Virgin.Supreme real i t ies that Romemade me discover, love and serve.That is why one can never thankGod enough”.

Cardinal Bernardin Gantin wasthus also a great African. Despitehis thirty years in the service ofthe universal Church, in Rome, heremained unabashedly a genuineAfrican, simple, humble, affable,respectful of everyone, withoutpomposity, wanting above all todeepen his love and his friendshipwith Christ every day and to ren-der his service to the Church andthe Pope ever more true, morecomplete and more humble.

He was a safe and solid bridgebetween Africa and the Holy See.He was a worthy son of theChurch. He was a worthy and no-ble representative of Africa to-wards the other continents andpeoples of the world. This is whatBenedict XVI said of him: “Hispersonality, human and priestly,was a marvelous synthesis of theAfrican soul with those specificfeatures of the Christian spirit: ofAfrican culture and identity and ofGospel values. He was the firstAfrican churchman to have held

28 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Left, Paul VI in front of the monument to the Ugandan martyrs, Namugongo, 2 August 1969. Montini was the firstpope to visit Africa; below, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin visiting the seminary of Ouidah, Benin,his native country, where he returned to live in 2002 after resigning from the post of Dean of the Sacred College

C O V E R

positions of extremely high re-sponsibility in the Roman Curia,and always carried them with histypical humble and simple style”(Insegnamenti di BenedettoXVI, IV, 1, Libreria Editrice Vati-cana, Vatican City 2008, pp.862-863, Friday 23 May 2009).

I had the privilege of knowingCardinal Gantin from as early as1971. He was then secretary of theCongregation for the Evangeliza-tion of Peoples (Propaganda Fide).And I was a student in Rome. Mybishop, His Excellency MonsignorRaymond-Marie Tchidimbo, Arch-bishop of Conakry in Guinea, wasin jail. The Church of Guinea wasgoing through a storm of persecu-t ion under the revolut ionaryregime of Sékou Touré. So I nolonger had a bishop and had lostall contact with my country andmy family. So Monsignor Gantin,as he then was, acted as bishop,father, counselor. His humility, hissimplicity and gentleness havemarked me deeply. He had an im-mense affection for me and I for

him. He considered me as his son,his continuation, his offshoot.One day, during a reception in theEmbassy of Senegal to the HolySee, organized in his honor for hisfinal return to Benin, he said,speaking of me: “Today I’m like abanana tree. The banana tree af-ter it has borne fruit, is cut downand it dies. But before it dies, it

plants a large number of shootsthat take its place. This here is myshoot”. I realize that compared tothe immense quality of the cardi-nal, I’m nothing but a shriveledoffshoot, poor and without muchvalue. But I am proud to have hadhim as a father and that he consid-ered me his spiritual son.

By going to Benin, BenedictXVI is visiting the whole of Africa,to confirm its faith, reawaken itshope and trust in its future, abright future because it is in thehands of God. The Holy Fatherwill give to the Church in Africa anew missionary impulse and anew dynamism in the service ofthe Gospel, of reconciliation, ofjustice and of peace. But if hegoes to Benin, it is also CardinalGantin, this man “full of wit andwisdom”, this great servant ofGod, of the Church and of thePope, whom Benedict XVI willvenerate, going to meditate forsome moments before his tomb.

He deserves the friendship and at-tention of the Pope

May this second pastoral visitof the Holy Father reinforce andmake more filial and more affec-tionate the devotion and loyalty ofthe whole Church of Africa to theSuccessor of Peter, as was thevenerable Cardinal BernardinGantin. q

30DAYS N. 10 - 2011 29

BENIN. The second pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Africa

Gantin with John Paul I, 28 September 1978

John Paul II in Dakar during the apostolic visit to Senegal, Gambia and Guinea,in February 1992

30 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Directed towards the crypt, to venerate the tomb of Saint Francis, Benedict XVI crosses the lower Basilica of Saint Francis with some leaders and representatives of Churches, of Ecclesial Communities and of world religions, at the Assisi meeting, 27 October 2011

Faith has the character of a gift that arrives, it cannot be inferred, it cannot be ‘produced’. It is not our own achievement. An interview with Cardinal Walter Kasper

by Gianni Valente

YEAR OF FAITH 2012-2013

A gift,not a possession

A‘Year of Faith’, a ‘time ofparticular reflection’ con-voked following the exam-

ple of Paul VI in 1967, with theaim of encouraging ‘a more com-plete convers ion to God, tostrengthen our faith in Him andto proclaim Him joyfully to thepeople of our time’. The propos-al of Benedict XVI to the wholeChurch, first spoken of in hishomily on Sunday 16 Octoberand set out in the apostolic letter

Porta fidei, is still in the germinalphase and will take on concreteform only in e leven months’time, opening in October 2012on the fiftieth anniversary of thebeginning of Vatican Council IIand the twentieth anniversary ofthe publication of the Catechismof the Catholic Church. Andyet, even in the prel iminarystages – as noted by Father Fed-erico Lombardi, director of Vati-can Radio and the Vatican press

office – what Pope Ratzinger hasannounced may be consideredone of the characteristic initia-tives of this pontificate.

Already in the first mentionand in the Apostolic Letter outlin-ing it there is a scattering of low-key, comforting invitations to setaside self-referential ‘ecclesio-centrism’, and to ask everythingof Jesus Christ, ‘He who givesrise to the faith and brings it tofulfillment’. ¬

3130DAYS N. 10 - 2011

It is God who holds open the door of faith, for us and for everyone. For this reason the beginning of faith is always possible. In the recent meeting in Assisithe Pope said agnostics help believers not to consider God their property... In secularization God has his ways of touching the hearts of every man. Of those who seek and also of those who do not seek. And they are ways that we do not know

On these pages, frescoesby Pietro Lorenzetti in the lower Basilicaof St Francis in Assisi.Right, The Last Supper

‘What more important thingsshould the shepherd of the wayfar-ing people of God tell us?’, com-mented Father Lombardi. 30Daysturned the question to CardinalWalter Kasper, president emeritusof the Pontifical Council for thePromotion of Christian Unity.

Benedict XVI has pro-claimed a Year of Faith. PaulVI already did so in 1967. Atthat time, both you andJoseph Ratzinger were twoyoung theologians in theirprime. How do you rememberthat decision of Pope Montini?

WALTER KASPER: Thosewere the years immediately afterthe Council. When the great en-thusiasm was over, the Churchseemed to go through a kind ofcollapse. It seemed that the faithwas waning, right when ecclesias-tical circles were debating the re-forms needed in the Church to re-vive the Christian message for thesituation of that time. Ratzingerwrote his Introduction to Christi-anity at the time. I wrote Intro-duction to the faith. In that con-text, Paul VI had the insight tohold the Year of Faith, which end-ed with the proclamation of theCreed of the People of God. Hewanted to show everyone that thefaith is the heart of everything. Al-so reforms are useful and neces-sary when they foster the life offaith and the salvation of all believ-ers. In recent days I have beenrereading Bernard of Clairvaux:his great reform also was only arestarting in the faith. As YvesCongar wrote, ‘successful reformsin the Church are those made infunction of the concrete needs ofsouls’.

Why hold a Year of Faith atthis precise time?

There is a crisis. One sees itparticularly in Europe. It is evidentin Germany. But when I speakwith Italian bishops, they tell methe same thing. Especially amongyoung people, many have no realcontact with the life of the Churchand with the sacraments. When

one speaks of the new evangeliza-tion, one can not but take note ofthis. Otherwise one ends up doingacademic things.

And yet Benedict XVI be-gins the Letter calling for thisspecial year by saying that‘the door of faith is always

open for us’. What is the im-port of those opening words?

It is God who holds open thedoor of faith, for us and for every-one. It is not us who can or shouldbusy ourselves opening it. Forthis reason the beginning of faithis always possible. It is not an

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The gift of faith is not some kind of thrust, a charge that someone gives us at the beginning, and then we go ahead alone.Rather it’s like a lantern in one’s hand that one carries, and it moves with us, lighting up the short stretch we have in front.Its light is necessary and sufficient to take the next step

The crucifixion, detail

achievement of ours. Faith hasthe character of a gift that arrives,it cannot be inferred, it cannot be‘produced’. For this reason alsothe invitation made by the Popeto agnostics on the recent day ofAssisi was important. In secular-izat ion, God has his ways oftouching the hearts of every man.Of those who seek and also ofthose who do not seek. And theyare ways that we do not know.

In Assisi, Benedict XVIspoke of agnostics in termsthat were certainly not thoseof opposition.

The Pope said that agnosticshelp believers ‘not to considerGod as their property’. God is nota possession of those who be-lieve. One cannot say of faith: Ihave it, others don’t... The believ-ers who have received the gift offaith are also on pilgrimage. And

one can never presume to antici-pate such a gift as a possessed un-derstanding of a conceptualknowledge. Sometimes, in theChurch, faced precisely with un-belief and agnosticism there hasbeen retrenchment and the im-pression given of looking at faithas a possession. As if the problemwere to argue and combat thosewho do not believe... One almostloses sight of the fact that Christdied for everyone.

The first l ines of Portafidei stress that concern forthe consequences of the so-cial, cultural and politicalcommitment of Christians of-ten prevails in the Church al-so ‘by continuing to think ofthe faith as a self-evident pre-supposition for life in society.Do you also note this takingfor granted?

First and foremost faith is apersonal relationship with God,which is expressed in prayer andin the trust that one will be up-held in the arms of God in everysituation, or as Jesus says: lovingGod with all our heart. Theolo-g ians speak of a theologica lvirtue. But in this first command-ment, the love of God is immedi-ately linked with love of one’sneighbor as oneself. Thus faithhas social, cultural and politicalconsequences, without which itwould not be sincere. On the oth-er hand, these consequencesmust be inspired and motivatedby love of God, otherwise theybecome a form of humanist ide-ology, which remains withoutfirm foundation. I am thinking ofthe preaching in churches onSundays. No other human realityhas this opportunity of reachingso many people who come spon-taneously to listen. But some-times the sermons seem only in-structions on what Christiansshould do and not do on themoral, cultural, political plane,often the joyful message thatGod always goes before us withHis grace is lacking.

There are those who say:now we need to focus more onfaith and less on social wel-fare. Is that the ‘solution’?

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Benedict XVI in prayer at the tomb of Francis in the crypt of the lower Basilica with some leaders and representatives of the Churches, of Ecclesial Communities and world religions

INTERVIEW WITH CARDINAL WALTER KASPER

Faith and charity cannot be setin opposition. It would be an intel-lectualism or a kind of misinter-preted mysticism. St Paul said thatfaith becomes active in charity. Ithas always expressed itself in thespiritual and corporal works ofmercy: helping the poor, the im-prisoned, the oppressed, the sick...The Christian life is simply this.Personally, the most compellingwitnesses to the faith I have seenwere on the journeys I made whenI was the person in the Church inGermany responsible for aid to theChurches of the developing coun-

tries. We went there taking somematerial resources to help the sur-vival of those people and, in themisery of the slums and favelas,we came across the cheerfulnessand trust of lives cherished andconsoled by the Lord. The samehappened looking at the faith ofthe many brethren encountered inecumenical dialogue. Through fra-ternal relations one bears witnessto the Catholic faith.

Now that the Year of Faithhas been called, what is thereto do?

Benedict XVI has only askedthat the Creed be reflected on in

each diocese. It’s not enough justto recite it, one must know and un-derstand it in its depth. Becausethe Creed expresses the funda-mental articles of faith, which arecommon to all Christians and cor-respond to their baptismal vows.Meantime they are constitutive ofthe Christian life. But I think it isimportant that the simple confes-sion of faith does not express aclaim to conceptual possession ofthe truth. We often sing the Creedduring Sunday mass. A dogmati-co-conceptual system cannot besung. Instead we sing the Creed,

and sing it as prayer. It is a doxolo-gy, praise and recognition thatgives thanks.

Some people say that moremust be done to make theChristian anthropological vi-sion credible.

Yes, of course that’s importanttoo. Faith is not just an intellectu-al act, but a way of being and liv-ing in God’s hands and under Hisprovidence. This also impliesChristian freedom well-under-stood. The confession of faith isprayer because it asks God to re-veal His mystery. As St Thomassaid, actus fidei non terminatur

ad enuntiabile sed ad rem. Theact of faith does not end in theverbal repetition of true formulas.It remains open to recognition ofthe living reality that those wordssuggest. And for Thomas, the‘res’ is God himself. It is He whoacts, it is not up to us to have to‘prove’ it. In addition, the Creedis the quintessence of the faith ofother generations. In the faithone is not alone before God. Oneis in a communion that embracesall ages. In times like ours, onefeels even more how important itis to find comfort and enjoy the

company of the saints and the Fa-thers of the Church, and all thegreat witnesses who have preced-ed us.

‘Believers are strength-ened by believing’, writes thePope, quoting St Augustine.How does one grow and goforward on the path of faith?

In faith, one is carried both atthe start and along the path of life.In the experiences of life one in-creasingly discovers the riches ofthe faith. It is not we who keep thefaith, as a property acquired. Weare kept in the faith. St Thomaswrote: ‘Grace creates faith not on-

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In the Creed we profess to believe in God the Father, in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, but we do not profess to have faith in theChurch. The Church is not a terminus of faith.Perhaps it’s useful to remember that theFathers of the Church did not feel the need to develop any systematic ecclesiology. They did not have the problem of dwelling on the Church, a few words were sufficient. The core of their interests and their concernwas certainly not the ecclesiastical institution

Paul VI reciting the Creed of the People of God, St Peter’s Square, Sunday 30 June 1968

ly when faith is born in a person,but as long as faith lasts’. We usedthis definition in the framework ofthe agreement with the Lutherans,when we recognized the funda-mental identity between the theol-ogy of Luther on justification byfaith and essential aspects of thedoctrine of the Council of Trentdefined in the decree De iustifica-tione. This means that the gift offaith is not some kind of thrust, acharge that someone gives us atthe beginning, and then we goahead alone. Nor is it like the light-ing on airport runways: lights ce-mented in asphalt to illuminate thewhole strip. Rather it’s l ike alantern in one’s hand that one car-

ries, and it moves with us, lightingup the short stretch we have infront. Its light is necessary and suf-ficient to take the next step.

If faith is at the beginningand at every step a gift and afree acknowledgment of theLord, what is the Church?

The Church is – as an old defi-nition says – the communion ofthe faithful. Tertullian said: Unuschristianus, nullus christianus.One single Christian, no Chris-tian. As Christians we are neveralone but always in a communityof believers of all times and of allplaces. Nevertheless, the Churchis not a terminus of faith. TheChurch is sacrament, sign and in-

strument. In the Creed we professto believe in God the Father, in Je-sus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, butdo not profess to have faith in theChurch. We believe in God, and itis He who reveals the Church asthe Body of Christ and as His peo-ple. The Church like the moondoes not have its own light but on-ly reflects the light of the sun,which is Christ. If it does not referto Christ, it does not manifest anybeauty of its own. The beauty thatis in it – for example, in the litur-gy – is only a reflection of the glo-ry of God.

And yet sometimes itseems that the Church wantsto occupy the scene thinkingthence to bear witness to theLord.

Perhaps it’s useful to remem-ber that the Fathers of the Churchdid not feel the need to developany systematic ecclesiology. Theydid not have the problem ofdwelling on the Church, a fewwords were sufficient. The core oftheir interests and their concernwas certainly not the ecclesiasticalinstitution. Ecclesiology only aris-es at the end of the Middle Ages, inresponse to conciliarism and thento Luther. And then, as Yves Con-gar said, it begins as ‘hierarcolo-gy’, to explain the theological anddoctrinal reasons of function anddominance of hierarchies in theecclesial framework. Also out ofthat came the temptation to andthe danger of a certain ‘ecclesio-centrism’. Vatican Council II, withits patristic ressourcement, alsotook up the image used by many ofthem of the Church as a mere re-flection of the light and work ofChrist, which is also found in thetitle of the Vatican II Constitutionon the Church: Lumen Gentium.

Speaking of hierarcology,even now, at least in the me-dia, there is much talk of bish-ops and cardinals.

Naturally, bishops and cardi-nals have their role in the life of theChurch. But Benedict XVI contin-ues to repeat that the central issueis not that of the Church, but thatof God. If faith in God wanes, theChurch can also be put aside andforgotten. q

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The Resurrection

POPE/1Year of Faith 2012-2013

In his homily at the Masscelebrated in St Peter’sBasilica on Sunday 16 Oc-tober, Benedict XVI an-nounced the launching of aYear of Faith, which will be-gin on 11 October 2012,the fiftieth anniversary ofthe opening day of VaticanII, and will end on 24 No-vember 2013, the Feast ofChrist the King of the Uni-verse. On 17 October themotu proprio Porta fideiwas released with which thePope formalized and ex-plained his decision.

POPE/2Three new saints

On 23 October BenedictXVI canonized Bishop GuidoMaria Conforti, the priestLuigi Guanella and the Span-ish religious Bonifacia Ro-dríguez de Castro. “Threenew saints”, he said in hishomily, “who allowed them-selves to be transformed bythe divine love, that imbuedtheir entire existence”.

POPE/3“God is not thepropertyof those who believe”

“God is not the ‘property’of those who believe. Bene-dict XVI spoke among the

three hundred representa-tives of various world reli-gions whom he invited toAssisi, twenty-five years af-ter the first meeting decid-ed by Wojtyla”. These arethe opening words of an ar-ticle by Gian Guido Vecchi,published in the Corrieredella Sera on 28 October,dedicated to the ‘Day of re-f lect ion, d ia logue andprayer for peace and justicein the world’ which washeld in Assisi on 27 Octo-ber. The article continued:“Benedict XVI sang thepraise of thinking agnostics,of those who ‘seek the truth’and by their example rid‘militant atheists’ of their‘false certainty’ but who atthe same time ‘cal l into

question’ believers them-selves: so that they ‘do notconsider God their proper-ty’. If people who seek thetruth ‘do not find God’, it de-pends ‘also on believers’who have ‘a reduced or evendistorted image of God’. Soagnostics play an importantpart against the ‘decadenceof man and of humanism’”.Vecchi concludes: “As an-nounced, there was noshared moment of prayer.Yet it was something to seethem when, all of them, fi-nally descended into thecrypt below the Basilica topay homage at the tomb ofSt Francis”. The article wastitled: The Pope praisesagnostics: “A help for be-lievers”.

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Left, Paul VI pronouncing the Creed of the People of God, Sunday 30 June 1968, at the closingof the Year of Faith

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Right, directed towards the crypt, to venerate the tomb of Saint Francis, Benedict XVIcrosses the lower Basilica of Saint Francis with someleaders and representatives of Churches, EcclesialCommunities and of worldreligions, at the Assisi meeting,27 October 2011

30DAYS N. 10 - 2011 37

On 17 October the Corriere dellaSera published large excerpts from atalk by Vittorio Messori at the Pontifi-cal Council for Promoting the NewEvangelization. These were his open-ing words: “We must return to theawareness that what we believe in,from which everything else derives, isencapsulated (as St Paul teaches us) inthree sole words: ‘Jesus is risen’. Fromwhich it results: ‘Therefore, Jesus isthe Messiah foretold by the prophetsand awaited by Israel’. This is what thefirst Christians called the kérygma,that is the cry of the herald who –through streets and squares – an-nounced urgent news to the people. Ithink the re-evangelization of the West,asked of us by John Paul II and Bene-dict XVI, is nothing other than this: notcomplex doctrines, but a re-beginningfrom the kérygma, from the basis onwhich everything rests. A return toproclaiming a simple yet scandalousIesùs estì kyrios, Jesus is the Lord”.

Then, recalling the times of VaticanII, Messori continued: “We debatedthe organization of the ecclesial insti-tution, the role of the pope, the bish-ops, the priests, lay people, women,of the liturgy. No one spoke of faith and evenless of its reasons, it was taken as a given, set-tled, while the argument went on about whatethical, political, social, economic, culturalcommitment should be for the Catholic. Butthese were nothing more than consequencesof a first cause, the ‘yes’ to the truth of theCreed, that no one bothered to examine andverify”.

Messori concluded: “There is no impactmade on society or culture by proposing theevangelical perspective, unless the problem of

Christ and the truth of his gospel is first ad-dressed. The problems which Catholics mustnow confront are rooted in something oftenunacknowledged and yet crucial: the falling offof faith, the reduction of Jesus to a moralteacher, the New Testament to an obscure pas-tiche of Judaism and paganism, of miracle tomyth, of eschatological hope to secular com-mitment. Well before all institutional reformand any moral or social preaching, we mustonce again find the Creed, the one we recite atMass, in its full sense”.

THE YEAR OF FAITH 2012-2013Christianity is contained in three words: “Jesus is risen”

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38 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

“Membra Christi et corpus sumus omnes simul; non

qui hoc loco tantum sumus, sed et per universam ter-

ram; nec qui tantum hoc tempore, sed quid dicam? Ex

Abel iusto usque in finem saeculi / All together we are

limbs and body of Christ, not just us who are here

in this place, but all of us throughout the earth.

And not only us who live in this time, but what to

say? From the righteous Abel to the end of the

world”, Augustine, Sermones 341, 9, 11; cf. Lumen

Gentium, n. 2.

“In the Gospel passage we have heard Jesus sends 72disciples out into the great harvest, which is the world,inviting them to pray the Lord of the Harvests thatthere be no lack of laborers in his harvest (cf. Lk 10, 1-3); but he does not send them with powerful means,but “as lambs among wolves’ (v. 3), without bag, bag-gage or sandals (cf. v. 4). In one of his homilies St JohnChrysostom comments: ‘For so long as we are sheep,we conquer: though ten thousand wolves prowlaround, we overcome and prevail. But if we becomewolves, we are worsted, for we shall be without thehelp of our Shepherd’ (Homily 33, 1: PG 57, 389).Christians must never yield to the temptation to be-come wolves among wolves; it is not with might, withforce, with violence that Christ’s kingdom of peacegrows, but with the gift of self, with love taken to theextreme, even towards enemies. Jesus does not con-quer the world with the force of arms, but with theforce of the Cross, which is the true guarantee of victo-ry. The consequence of this for those who want to bedisciples of the Lord, his envoys, is to be prepared forthe passion and martyrdom, to lose their own life for

him, so that goodness, love andpeace may triumph in the world.This is the prerequisite needed to beable to say, upon entering into anysituation: ‘Peace be to this house’(Lk 10, 5).

In front of St Peter’s Basilica,these are two large statues, one ofSaint Peter and the other of SaintPaul. They are easily told apart: StPeter holds in his hand the keys, StPaul holds in his hands a sword.Those unfamiliar with the history ofthe latter might think that this was agreat warlord who led power fularmies and subdued peoples and nations by the sword,winning fame and wealth for himself by the blood ofothers. Whereas the exact opposite is the case: thesword he holds is the instrument by which Paul wasput to death, with which he was martyred and thatshed his blood. His battle was not one of violence, ofwar, but that of martyrdom for Christ. His onlyweapon was the message: ‘Jesus Christ and him cruci-fied’ (1Cor 2, 2). And his preaching was not based on‘plausible words of wisdom, but on the manifestationof the Spirit and its power’ (v. 4)”… “This same logicholds true for us also, if we want to be bearers of thekingdom of peace proclaimed by the Prophet Zachari-ah and fulfilled by Christ: we must be willing to pay inperson, to suffer misunderstanding, rejection, perse-cution in the first person. It is not the sword of the con-queror that builds peace, but the sword of the sufferer,of those who give up their own life”. Thus Pope Bene-dict XVI during the general audience on Wednesday,26 October 2011.

St Paul

MIRACLE AND MARTYRDOM“As lambs among wolves.” The sword of St Paul

Abel and Cain, Palatine Chapel, Palermo

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CHURCH/1Tettamanzi: the bookof life is Jesus

“‘The book of life’, says St.Bernard, ‘is Jesus, blessed ishe to whom it is given toread this book’: for him it willbe great joy and peace”.This is the conclusion of anarticle by Cardinal DionigiTettamanzi in Corriere del-la Sera on 2 November onthe occasion of the publica-tion of the new AmbrosianEvangeliary.

CHURCH/2Martini andmovements

“Movements can give muchto the Church, as one seesin the ecumenical move-ment and the biblical move-ment. But when the dynam-ics of power and profit pre-vail in them Grace may getlost and the Church, insteadof being enriched with newspiritual energy experiencesdebilitating bleeding”. Sowrote Cardinal Carlo MariaMartini in the Corriere del-la Sera on Sunday 30 Octo-

ber in response to a readerof the monthly column thecardinal writes for the Milannewspaper.

SACRED COLLEGE/1Law’s eightiethbirthday

On 4 November U.S. Cardi-nal Bernard Francis Law,Archpriest of the PapalBasilica of Santa Maria Mag-giore, turned eighty yearsold. On that date, the Col-lege of Cardinals was com-posed of 193 cardinals, ofwhom 112 are voters.

SACRED COLLEGE/2The resignation of Rosales

On 13 October the Pope ac-cepted the resignation of 79year-old Cardinal Gauden-cio Borbon Rosales as Arch-bishop of Manila, Philip-pines. In his place he ap-

pointed 54 year-old Luis An-tonio Tagle, Bishop of Imussince 2001.

RUSSIA/1The gifts of the Spiritor a vacuous rollof drums

“A ‘political Church’ doesnot help the world. The re-duction of the Church ofChrist over the last cen-

tur ies has led to the es-trangement of masses ofpeople from it... If Chris-tians do not bother to ob-tain the true gifts of theSpirit, and first and fore-most holiness, their preach-ing is reduced to a vacuousroll of drums”. This is a pas-sage from the speech bySergej Capnin, editor of thePatriarchate of Moscow’smagazine, at a conferenceorganized by the RussianChristian Foundation at theCatholic University of theSacred Heart in Milan, andpublished in L’OsservatoreRomano on 4 November.

RUSSIA/2Medvedev and the miracle of faith

“If we talk about what hashappened in the last twentyyears, in terms of my experi-ence as Orthodox Christian,it is a miracle. Frankly I couldnot have imagined 15-20years ago that the recovery,the re-discovery of faith bysuch a large number of citi-zens would be so fast”. Thewords are those of Dmitry

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In view of the XIII Ordinary GeneralAssembly of the Synod of Bishops,which will be held from 7 to 28 Oc-tober 2012 on the topic ‘The newevangelization for the transmissionof the Christian faith’, the Pope, on22 October, appointed 71 year-oldCardinal Donald William Wuerl,Archbishop of Washington since2006, Relator-General, and 64year-old Pierre-Marie Joseph Car-ré, Archbishop of Montpellier,France, as Special Secretary.

SYNODWuerl Relator-General

Baptism in Moscow

Cardinal Donald William Wuerl

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Medvedev, President of theRussian Federation, in aspeech at a conference at-tended by Patriarch Kirill ofMoscow and other authori-tative representatives of theOrthodox Church. TheRussian president’s wordswere reported by the Vati-can correspondent MarcoTosatti in his blog, St Pe-ter’s and surroundings, 7November.

ITALYAccording to the majority of Catholics a Catholicparty would bedetrimental

On 23 October in Corrieredella Sera the well-knownpollster Renato Mannhei -mer analyzed the opinionheld by Italian Catholics onthe founding of a newCatholic party. These arehis conclusions: “Only a lit-tle over a quarter (26%) ofpract ic ing Cathol ics(which, in our classification,are people who go to Mass

at least twice a month) is infavor of a strengthening inItaly of the political pres-ence of believers. Indeed44% consider the optionharmful or in any case inap-propriate. And among the‘sporadic’ (those who at-tend religious services oncea month or less) those in fa-vor of a more organizedcommitment of Catholicsare fewer still (22%)”.

MIDDLE EAST/1The attack on Iranwould result in a century of disasters

Israel is ready to bomb Iran.Rumors leaked to the presshave been confirmed by Is-rael i President ShimonPeres who, on various pub-l ic occasions, has con-firmed the existence of amilitary plan to prevent Irandeveloping atomic power.An article in the Corrieredella Sera on 5 Novemberdeclares that the possibilityof a raid on Iran’s nuclear

facilities is ‘splitting the Is-rael i government’, andwent on: “A total of threeformer heads of the Intelli-gence services – EfraimLevy, Yuval Diskin andMeir Dagan... – adviseopenly against it: Iran is notyet a threat, Ahmadinejadis not Saddam and not evenAssad, this time a surprisebombing ‘would cause acentury of disasters’”.

MIDDLE EAST/2Segev: Shalitand the historic talkswith Hamas

“The great historical novel-ty is that Hamas and Israelhave made a deal. And theday after the world didn’tfall apart. They made a pactwith the devil and the sunrose all the same. The twosides have seen that rea-soning around a table ispossible. This small stepcan bring a little rationalityand something different, inthe future. It won’t happentomorrow. But the day af-ter tomorrow, who knows”.So said Israeli historian

Tom Segev in an interviewwith the Corriere dellaSera the day after the re-lease of IDF soldier GiladShal i t by Hamas in ex-change for 1,027 Palestin-ian prisoners.

MIDDLE EAST/3UNESCO recognizesthe Palestinian State

“Let’s come to an agree-ment. If the Palestinianstake up arms, everyonehowls that violence is an ob-stacle to peace. If the Pales-tinians try to exert diplo-matic pressure, as they didyesterday, everyone howlsthat these ‘unilateral’ initia-t ives are an obstacle topeace. We would thereforelike to know – especiallyfrom Israel, the UnitedStates, and Italy – exactlywhat the Palest iniansshould do, apart from quiet-ly fading away among theclouds, as in Miracle in Mi-lan. Yesterday Palestinewas admitted to UNESCO.An old story – every yearthe Palestinians regularlyask to be admitted – a new

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Faithful at a parish Sunday Mass

Gilad Shalit

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result: 107 for, 14 against,with 52 abstentions. Theapproval came, thanks par-ticularly to the consent ofthe new front that is leadingglobal development, theBRIC countries, the Africanand Arab countr ies andsome important Europeancountries such as Franceand Belgium”. Thus LuciaAnnunziata in La Stampaon 1 November.

TUNISIAThe Islamic party like Moro’s ChristianDemocrats

“Ennahda can be comparedto the Christian Democratsat the time of Aldo Moro.And there is not only one Is-lam, as there was not onlyone communism. We can-not put radical extremistsand moderate Muslims on

the same plane. It would belike considering Pol Pot andBerl inguer in the sameway”. So declared MoncefMarzouki, leader of the CPR

(Congress for the Republic),quoted in Corriere dellaSera on 27 October, com-menting on the Tunisianelections held in late Octo-ber, won by the party of Is-lamic inspiration Ennahda,whose leader is RachidGhannouchi.

DIPLOMACY/2New ambassadors to the Holy See

On 9 September BenedictXVI received the credentialsof Britain’s new ambassadorto the Holy See. He is 45year-old Nigel Marcus Bak-er, a career diplomat, Headof Mission in Bolivia for thelast four years.

On 21 October it wasthe turn of the new repre-sentative of the Nether-lands, 62 year-old JosephWeterings, a career diplo-

mat, formerly ambassadorto Libya and Zimbabwe.

On 31 October then itwas the new representativeof Brazil, 68 year-old AlmirFranco de Sá Barbuda, a ca-reer diplomat, Ambassadorto Belgium in the last fewyears and then consul gen-eral in Washington.

On 4 November the newAmbassador of Côted’Ivoire, 63 year-old JosephTebah-Klah was received, acareer diplomat, who be-tween 2003 and 2006 wascounselor and chargé d’af-faires ad interim in the em-bassy to the Holy See.

On 7 November then itwas the turn of the newAmbassador of Germany,62 year-old ReinhardSchwep pe, a career diplo-mat, former head of mis-sion in Warsaw and mostrecently representative atthe UN in Geneva. q

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On 15 September the Pope appointed the 68 year-oldSicilian Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza as new Nuncio tothe Czech Republic; he was nuncio to Ireland from 2008.

On 15 October then he appointed 61 year-old Ameri-can Archbishop James Patrick Green as new apostolicnuncio to Peru; he was nuncio to South Africa, Namibia,Swaziland and Lesotho from 2006 and also first nuncioto Botswana from 2009.

On 19 October 70 year-old Archbishop Carlo MariaViganò was appointed apostolic nuncio to the UnitedStates; from July 2009 he was secretary general of theGovernorate of Vatican City.

On 29 October 54 year-old Archbishop Nicola Gira-soli was appointed as apostolic nuncio to Antigua andBarbuda, Bahamas, Dominica, Jamaica, Grenada, SaintKitts and Nevis, Santa Lucia, Saint Vincent and theGrenadines, Surinam, Co-operative Republic of Guyanaand, finally, apostolic delegate to the West Indies; from2006 he was papal representative in Zambia andMalawi.

DIPLOMACYNew nuncios to the Czech Republic, Peru, USA and the West Indies

Carlo Maria Viganò

Rachid Ghannouchi, leader

of the Ennahda Islamist party

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Rome is a long way from Mal-abar. But if you want to feelwhat the closeness that

Communio Ecclesiarum con-notes and expresses really is, justlook at the thread of gratuitous

and mutual recognition that unitesthe Church of Rome and the Sy-ro-Malabar Church. Two realitiesthat for nearly ten centuries havenot shared any kind of legal-insti-tutional relationship. George

Alencherry who, last May, waselected Major Archbishop of thatIndian Eastern Rite Church thatflourished by the preaching of StThomas the Apostle, came to visitthe Successor of Peter in his

Benedict XVI and His Beatitude George Alencherry, at the audience with the delegation of the Syro-Malabar Church in the ClementineHall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, 17 October 2011

by Roberto Rotondo and Gianni Valente

“Ours is the faith of the apostles, handed downby St Thomas”

Eastern Churches

The apostolic origin. Loyalty to their traditions.The relations with the Hindus and a bloom of life that knows noboundaries. Relations with Rome. Interview with George Alencherry,Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Churchon the occasion of his visit to Pope Benedict XVI

Apostolic See in the month of Oc-tober. During his visit to Rome,the head of the most numerousand important Eastern r i teCatholic community after theGreek-Ukrainian Catholics alsowanted to meet 30Days.

The interview took place at theDomus Romana Sacerdotalis inVia della Traspontina.

Beatitude, please tell us ofyour encounter with the HolyFather?

GEORGE ALENCHERRY: Iwas elected as Major Archbishopof the Syro-Malabar Synod inMay, and then the Pope con-firmed my election. This proce-dure was applied for the first time:in fact, the two major archbishopswho preceded me had been cho-sen directly by the Holy See. Theelection was held on 24 May, andon 29 May I was installed as majorarchbishop and archbishop of thediocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly.This October was my first visit asmajor archbishop to the Pope,along with the permanent synodof our bishops. It was an opportu-nity to renew my statement of loy-alty and obedience to the succes-sor of Peter as major archbishop.During the trip I also visited otherdepartments of the Holy See, in

particular the Congregation forEastern Churches.

What topics did you dealwith in your meetings at theVatican?

We talked a lot about problemsof jurisdiction that create obstaclesto our pastoral work. The faithfulof the Syro-Malabar Church areabout four million, of which 3 mil-lion and 400 thousand live in thetwenty-eight dioceses in India. Ofthese dioceses, eighteen are in theterritory of the Syro-MalabarChurch itself (Kerala, part of TamilNadu and Karnataka). We have aterritorial jurisdiction only in theseeighteen dioceses. And we’d liketo have a territorial jurisdictioncovering the whole territory of In-dia: this is one of our appeals tothe Holy Father and for us it is animportant request. We believe it isour right. Before the arrival ofWestern missionaries – the Por-tuguese arrived in the sixteenthcentury – the jurisdiction of us‘Christians of St Thomas’ was ex-tended to all of India. Then theWestern missionaries, because ofthe influence of European mon-archs, took jurisdiction of India, re-stricting ours to the areas wherewe were more concentrated.

Your request may seemlike a vindication of past

rights now almost buried byhistory ...

No, it is a matter that regardsthe present, in very concreteterms. Our faithful are growing innumber and spreading to other re-gions. But it happens that thereour people can not find adequatepastoral care in keeping with theirown tradition, and suffer becauseof it. Our people are accustomedto our liturgy, our customs, ourways of prayer and lay participa-t ion in the administrat ion ofparishes. The role of the laity inparish life and catechesis is a char-acteristic of the Syro-MalabarChurch. In many big cities thereare large concentrations of Syro-Malabar faithful: seventy thou-sand in Delhi, fifty thousand inChennai and Bangalore, almosttwenty thousand in Hyderabad.We would like to establish dioce-ses at least in these large urbancenters.

And what were you told?The Holy See has said that in

principle we have the right to ju-risdiction. But, since the LatinChurch has been installed in otherregions, it is necessary to establishsome kind of agreed understand-ing with the Latins. The Holy Fa-ther understands our needs andexplained that it will be necessaryto proceed one step at a time. Herecalled the words of VaticanCouncil II, for which each Churchsui juris is entitled to be able tolive in autonomy. There is a his-torical anomaly which must becorrected. We are patient, but it isnot fair that it should continue likethis.

What are the objections thatare posed to your request?

Already, the Syro-Malabar, Sy-ro-Malankara and the LatinChurches have overlapping dioce-ses in our historical territory. Butsome bishops think that therecould be difficulties were we to ex-tend our jurisdiction to territoriesthat fall within their dioceses. Bearin mind that currently in some Lat-in dioceses the Syro-Malabars rep-resent a large proportion of thefaithful looked after by the Latinpriests. If we were to extend juris-diction, very few faithful of the Lat-in Rite might remain in some of ¬

INDIA. The Syro-Malabarians

Faithful in prayer during a Mass in the Church of Our Lady of Health, Hyderabad, in the State of Andhra Pradesh

4330DAYS N. 10 - 2011

those Latin dioceses. Anotherconcern regards the Syro-Malabarpriests who have learned the LatinRite and work in Latin dioceses.There are more than thirty bish-ops of Syro-Malabar origin work-ing as Latin bishops in the dioce-ses of the north.

And outside of India, howare things?

There is a large number of Sy-ro-Malabar faithful outside India.In the United States there areabout one hundred thousand, andfor them a diocese that has itscenter in Chicago was created.The vast majori ty of fai thfulabroad are concentrated in thePersian Gulf. In Saudi Arabiathere are more than eighty thou-sand, almost all workers who havemoved there permanently. ThePope has appointed two apostolicvicars and a nuncio, but thepriests who were engaged to takecare of those faithful, even thoughof Syro-Malabar origin, havejoined the Latin congregationsand are Latins by training. The ab-sence of priests of our rite has cre-ated some tension in those coun-tries. It is another problem wepointed out to the Holy See; wehope that they will listen.

How is the collaboration be-tween the various CatholicChurches in India proceeding?

The three Churches, Latin, Sy-ro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara,are part of the one universalChurch, and there is an Episcopal

Conference of Bishops of thethree Churches. In that Confer-ence, we work together withoutany problem. The CatholicChurch is a communion of partic-ular Churches: there are twenty-two Eastern Churches, along withthe Latin that comprise the univer-sal Church. Only by starting offfrom this theology is ecumenismpossible: if the Greek-Orthodoxperceived the existence of thiscommunion, they would unite

with the Catholics. Ecumenism isnot to bring the Orthodox Churchunder the administration of theLatin. We, from the inside, ask fora real ecumenism. The Orthodoxask for it from outside. But someLatins do not understand it.

And relations with the Hin-dus?

In general Hinduism is a religionthat promotes peace and harmo-ny. Most people look at us withsympathy, and we work together.

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Eastern Churches

George Alencherry with the Synodwhich elected him Major Archbishop,24 May 2011

George Alencherry confirming a child

The first Major Archbishop elected by the Synod

George Alencherry was born in 1945. He has two brothers who arepriests and a sister who is a nun. He studied in St Josephʼs Pontifical

Seminary of Alwaye and matured in the Archdiocese of Changanacherry,where he held various positions of responsibility before and after periods ofhigher learning spent in France (a doctorate in Catechetics at the InstitutCatholique in Paris and a doctorate in Biblical Theology at the Sorbonne). In1996 he was appointed the first bishop of Thuckalay, a diocese born fromthe subdivision of the Changanacherry archdiocese. Forty-six bishops ofthe Synod elected him Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church on 24May 2011, guaranteeing him the necessary majority of two-thirds on thesecond ballot. Two days later, Benedict XVI confirmed the election.

The episcopal motto of Mar George Alencherry is: ̒Service in a dialogueof truth and loveʼ.

G.V.

44

But as you know, in the recent pastthere have been groups of funda-mentalists who have created prob-lems. In every country, for one rea-son or another, there are funda-mentalists. Just as there are politi-cal extremists, who we call terror-ists. In India there are extremistgroups within Hinduism: whoeverbelieves in authentic Hinduismdoes not love them, but thesegroups create problems, especiallyfor Christians. They fear thatChristians, through conversions,will take control of the country. Butthis fear is baseless and indeedChristians do not react with vio-lence to their attacks. The govern-ment knows this and is helping us.

The Syro-Malabar Churchremained in the faith of the

apostles though living in themidst of a culture rooted inother religious presupposi-tions. This is a wonderful tes-timony to the fact that theChurch is of Jesus Christ (Ec-clesiam Suam , Paul VIwrote). What can the story ofthe Syro-Malabar Christianssuggest to the whole of Chris-tianity?

The legacy that we carry withus is the result of twenty centuriesof witness to the Catholic faith, towhich we have remained faithfuleven when there were seriousmisunderstandings on the part offoreign missionaries. Our churchhas a unique style of catechesis: infamilies, in parishes and schools,at all these three levels we teach

children to keep the faith. Here inRome there are about six thou-sand Syro-Malabar faithful: on 16October we celebrated a beautifulliturgy in the Lateran Basilica.The Basilica was full.

The Syro-Malabar Churchconfirmed communion withRome after centuries of nocontact. It is the sign that thecommunion of the Church isnot primarily the result of le-gal relations...

Ours is the faith of the Apos-tles, handed down by St Thomas.St Thomas could not have starteda new Church by his own poweralone. In India also he did onlywhat Jesus told him to do. For thesame reason, Thomas and allthose who received the evangeli-cal annunciation through him arein communion with Peter, and thisis a guarantee of our faith. Theloyalty to the Pope comes fromour experience of the faith, wepray for the Pope in the Eucharis-tic celebration,in the liturgy weconsider the saints of all the par-ticular Churches together withour own. Doctrinally, we protectwhat we have received from theNicene Creed. The Eucharist andother sacraments, through the giftof the Holy Spirit, unite us in theone holy and apostolic Church.

Tell us about your devotionto St Thomas.

After the feastdays of Our Lord,from Christmas to Easter and thefeasts of the Blessed Virgin – theImmaculate Conception, the Nativ-ity and Assumption – the mostsolemn feastday in the Syro-Mal-abar Church is the ‘dukhrana’, orcommemoration of St Thomas.We celebrate it all over the world,including Saudi Arabia, where youcan not hold official celebrations,more than three hundred faithfulgathered in a private place andphoned me, asking for a blessing.According to tradition, Thomasfounded seven communities in In-dia. Those places have become asmany places of pilgrimage. Andthe first Sunday after Easter is thefeastday of St Thomas touching theside of Jesus. It is a great feastdayattended by many Hindus also.

Cardinal Levada, at thelast Synod of the Eastern

4530DAYS N. 10 - 2011

INDIA. The Syro-Malabarians

¬

Ours is the faith of the Apostles, handed down by St Thomas. St Thomas could not have started a new Churchby his own power alone. In India also he didonly what Jesus told him to do. For the samereason, Thomas and all those who received the evangelical annunciation through him are in communion with Peter, and this is a guarantee of our faith

A procession on the occasion of 'dukhrana', the commemoration of St Thomas, near the Church of St Thomas, in Palayur, in the State of Kerala

Churches, announced that hewould consult the Eastern pa-triarchs on a possible reformof the exercise of the Petrineministry. What do you sug-gest, in particular with re-gard to relations with theEastern Churches?

The Catholic Church throughthe Council for Christian Unity,has already begun a dialogue onthe primacy. I think we shouldcontinue the dialogue and seek acommon agreement with theEastern Churches, as there was inthe first four centuries of Christi-anity. At that time there was acommon understanding of theprimacy. Now the OrthodoxChurch argues that it is impossibleto go back to theology before theCouncil of Chalcedon because wedo not possess any documentsfrom that era. But I think thatfrom the documents and state-ments subsequent to the time ofChalcedon there would be thepossibility of dialogue and agree-ment on the Petrine ministry. Be-cause there is the phrase primusinter pares. We all need a Petrineministry of unity, which is a refer-ence for all the Churches. I hopethat a halfway point is foundwhere the Catholic Church andthe Orthodox Churches couldcome together in full communionwith the Church of Christ.

For centuries your Churchhas had to deal with theprocesses of ‘latinization’ putin place in your regard. Therewere those who believed youwere heretics or schismaticsbecause you had your ownprayers, your liturgies anddid not speak Latin. Do youstill see residues of that men-tality circulate today?

The way of thinking haschanged a lot, even in the LatinChurch. Among theologians, in-cluding most of the bishops andthe Apostolic See. Father PlacidPodipara, CMI, a well known the-ologian and historian renownedin our Church, said that the Syro-Malabar Church is Christian byfaith, Hindu by culture, and east-ern by cult. Unfortunately, themissionaries who arrived in thesixteenth century did not under-

stand it. They had no bad inten-tions, it was the attitude of thetime. But now what they thoughtwas mistaken can be restored.This is what the Second VaticanCouncil says. Much has changed,but where this change has not tak-en place, there are problems. Andthis happens with the mentality ofsome Latin bishops. I also said thisto the Pope: I said: “Your Holi-ness, there are many Latin bish-ops who understand the ecclesiol-ogy of communion correctly, butthere are others ...”.

The liturgy has had a cen-tral role for the historicalcontinuity of your Church.How do you see the impor-tance given to the liturgy bythe Magisterium of the pres-ent pope?

The teaching of the presentPope is really saving the Churchof our time. There are many aber-rations that were entering theChurch, sometimes in the name

of Vatican Council II. There aresome who misinterpreted theCouncil, stopping at incidentalthings and losing sight of the es-sential vision. The Pope wants tofol low what Vatican I I real lymeant to say. And when he, veryvery slowly, will be able to passthese things, the Church will betruly united. The dissipation andthe worldliness of the Church arevery extensive, especially in Eu-rope, and the restoration will takelonger. But this is the intention ofthe Pope, and the Syro-MalabarChurch is with him.

Yet there were also heatedcontroversies in the Syro-Mal-abar Church between thosewho support the full recoveryof the traditional liturgical her-itage and those who considerthis a form of traditionalist aes-thetic. Between the ‘chaldean -izers’ and the ‘latinizers’ ...

I will tell you: if something isChaldean, or European, or from

46 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Eastern Churches

Many seem not to understand that if the Syro-Malabar Church thrives and prospers,the universal Church flourishes. Because everyparticular Church is for the Universal Church. And the Latin Church also is a particular Church

His Beatitude George Alencherry during the interview with journalists from 30Days,17 October 2011

any other place, what is valid isvalid. But some, as a result of latin-ization, are convinced that whatbelongs to Western culture is goodand that what comes from the Eastis not good. It is an impressioncreated by the latinization, towhich we have been subjected forthree centuries. Although the uni-versal Church with the SecondVatican Council has given us thefreedom to recover the valuable el-ements of our heritage, a largepart of the Church has forgottenthem and does not feel the needfor this recovery. They say: we willcontinue to move forward withwhat we have now, and if we needanything else, we’ll take it from theLatin Church. This is their atti-tude. Others respond that in orderto continue being what we are, wemust first of all recover what hasbeen taken from us and that wehave lost.

I, in my office, will try to createmore unity and a certain uniformi-ty in liturgical celebrations. Not acomplete uniformity, but unity on

the essentials. To be implementedlittle by little. Gradually. For ex-ample, at first in the Latin Churchthere were those who said that wecelebrate facing the wall. But fac-ing the East is not to have yourface to the wall. It is to look atwhere the Lord comes from. Inthe theology of our Church, thecelebrant and the people offersacrifice together to God the Fa-ther, facing East.

India is becoming a kind ofgeo-economic superpower.There are new problems.How do these processes af-fect your pastoral work?

The world changes, so do we.Our faithful emigrate, to study orseek employment. Only one thirdof them live in the original dioce-ses. About two-thirds are outside,in big cities. In America and in Eu-rope there are Syro-Malabar doc-tors, businessmen, traders ontheir way up the social ladder. Ifuniversal jurisdiction over ourfaithful is recognized to us, we canhelp foster this energy so that itsstrength is in the service of theuniversal Church. Otherwise whatwe lose the universal Church willlose. And if our faithful should findit difficult to stay in touch withtheir spiritual heritage, they willseek spiritual meaning in Pente-costal groups or realities like that.And this is already happening. Weare losing our faithful. They comefrom India to the West, they findsomeone who says to them, whydo you have to go to the churchesof the Latins? Come with us, wepray together. We have lost many.We are anxious about this andhave expressed our anguish alsoto the Vatican departments.Everyone seems to understandwhat we say, but then decisionsare not taken. They have to con-sult so many people, and timepasses. And things get worse.Many seem not to understand thatif the Syro-Malabar Church thrivesand prospers, the universalChurch flourishes. Because everyparticular Church is for the Uni-versal Church. And the LatinChurch also is a particular Church.Whereas in the minds of some,universal coincides with Latin.This is obviously not the official

doctrine. It is not the thought ofany serious theologian. But it con-tinues to be a widespread mentali-ty in many, and creates delays.

Recently, at the PontificalGregorian University, therewas an important interna-tional Congress on the so-called Anaphora of Addaiand Mari . Why does thisanaphora have a particularimportance from the liturgi-cal and ecumenical point ofview?

That of Addai and Mari is theoldest Anaphora in the universalChurch. In it we perceive the sim-plest theology of the Gospels, themost germinal understanding ofthe mystery of Christ, without thedoctrinal formulations that camelater. As St Mark’s Gospel is thesimplest Gospel, that of Addai andMari is the simplest liturgy. So,when we celebrate it, we experi-ence intensely the presence of Je-sus with us. Even the expectationsand the supplicat ions of theChurch are very well integrated in-to the Anaphora. It contains theprayers for the weak, the op-pressed, the martyred, the poor,the refugees. In other words, it hasthe beauty of simplicity. TheAnaphora of Addai and Mari isused by the Assyrian Church ofthe East, and has the characteris-tic of not containing in an explicitmanner the words of institution,those spoken by Jesus at the LastSupper (“Take and eat, this is mybody ... Take, drink, this is myblood ... Do this in remembranceof me”). The Syro-MalabarChurch also used the traditionalform of that Anaphora until thesixteenth century, without inter-polations. But the Latin theolo-gians argued that without thewords of institution there was notrue consecration, they thereforeconsidered the Anaphora of Ad-dai and Mari invalid. Then, in2001, the Pontifical Council forPromoting Christian Unity, withthe consent of the Congregationfor the Doctrine of the Faith, rec-ognized the val idi ty of thatAnaphora, used since time imme-morial also in our Qurbana, theEucharistic sacrifice according tothe Malabar Rite. q

4730DAYS N. 10 - 2011

INDIA. The Syro-Malabarians

Marian devotion in Srinagar,in the State of Jammu and Kashmir

48 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Ecclesiastical Colleges

The Institute was founded by Pope Pius XII and now houses forty priests of the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara rites. Our visit was an opportunity to become better acquainted with these two rites which, together with the Latin one, form the IndianCatholic Church, one of the most flourishing in Christendom

The chapel of the Pontifical Institute of St John of Damascus decorated with icons made by Don Jacob Kooroth; in the center, a mosaic by Marko Ivan Rupnik

by Pina Baglioni

The India that isin the heart of Rome

SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS PONTIFICAL INSTITUTE

One breathes an atmos-phere of great joy at thePontif ical Inst i tute St

John of Damascus, the home offorty Indian priests, in Rome tofurther their studies.

They are the sons of theChurch of St Thomas, founded,according to tradition, by theApostle of the Lord in the ex-treme south of India, the presentfederal state of Kerala. Thirty-one of them belong to the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, the re-maining nine to the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Allare between thirty and thirty-five, and have been priests forseveral years.

Their head is Father VargheseKurisuthara, a Syro-Malabarwho comes from Kerala. He hasbeen head of the St John ofDamascus Inst i tute for fouryears, after nine as deputy head.After his studies and ordinationin India, he gained a doctorate atthe Accademia Alfonsiana inMoral Theology, a discipline henow teaches at the Teresianum,the Theological Faculty of the In-ternational College of DiscalcedCarmelites of St Teresa of Avilaand St John of the Cross.

Father Varghese belongs tothe Malabar province of the Or-der of Discalced Carmelites. “Therole of the Carmelites has beenextremely important in the histo-ry of the Christ ians of StThomas”, says the rector. “Theywere sent by Pope Alexander VII

under the jurisdiction of the Con-gregation of Propaganda Fide, inthe mid-seventeenth century, inorder to bring the faithful togetherand put an end to the running dis-putes between the Portuguesemissionaries and the Christians ofSt Thomas. They were so es-teemed by Indian Christians, es-pecially in Kerala, that they in-spired indigenous Carmelite con-gregations”.

Among the priests housed atthe St John of Damascus thereare students of the MissionaryCongregat ion of the MostBlessed Sacrament, the Vin-centian Congregation, the Con-gregation of St Theresa, the So-ciety of the Oblates of the Sa-cred Heart, the Order of the Imi-tation of Christ and of the Mis-sionary Society of St Thomasthe Apostle.

All forty priests are in Romethanks to bursaries given by theCongregat ion for EasternChurches. Some are studying fora licentiate, but the majority for adoctorate. Thirteen are attend-ing courses in Canon Law andEastern Liturgy at the Pontifical

Oriental Institute. Theothers are mostly study-ing theology and philos-ophy at a l l the otherpontifical universities.“This institute, whichopened on 4 December1940, was very muchwanted by Pope Pius XIIfor priests from the East-ern Churches who didnot have their own train-ing houses, and forthose wishing to exer-cise their priestly min-istry in the East. At thetime, there wasn’t a sin-gle Indian”, says FatherVarghese. “The Popedecided to name it afterJohn of Damascus be-cause of the saint’s affec-tion for the papacy andhis special devotion tothe Mother of God”.

In those years Indianseminarians and priestsstayed in a wing of theRussicum Pontifical Col-lege. Subsequently,

30DAYS N. 10 - 2011 49

Above, students of the PontificalInstitute of St John of Damascuswith Cardinal Leonardo Sandri,Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, at the blessing of the iconostasis,4 October 2010.

Below, St Thomas in an icon in the lobby of the Institute

¬

they were lodged in the Pius Ro-manian College, because thecommunist regime barred Ro-manian priests from coming toRome. Then, in 1993, the Insti-tute was moved to its present site,a former clinic, wedged in a densenetwork of roads between thebasilicas of St John Lateran andSanta Croce in Gerusalemme,purchased by the Congregationfor the Eastern Churches andcompletely renovated.

The St John of Damascus de-pends directly on the prefect ofthe Congregation for the EasternChurches, Cardinal LeonardoSandri. And since the academicyear 1996-1997, it is reservedexclusively to students belongingto the Syro-Malabar CatholicChurch and Syro-MalankaraCatholic Church.

An Institute for two churchesThe Institute’s day, the rector ex-plains, begins with a morningMass at 6.30. It is celebrated inthe two rites in the respectivechapels : in the larger, for theMalabars in the Syro-Malabarr i te, in the smal ler for theMalankaras in the Syro-Antioch-ene rite. “Then Mass is celebrat-ed in the Latin rite, all together. Asort of ‘exercise’ for when theygo to say mass on Sundays, in theRoman parishes, or also atChristmas and Easter. Or in sum-

mer, when the Indian priests goto lend a hand in many parishesin Italy and Germany.”

In addition, speaking from di-rect experience I can say that theInstitute enjoys an excellent cui-sine: twice a week Indian recipes,for the rest, Italian.

I asked Father Varghese whatthese priests will do, once theyare back in India. “Some of themwill go to teach in seminaries, oth-ers will be employed in the episco-pal curia, in the youth ministry incatechesis in the diocese. Othersagain will be parish priests”.

In Kerala, the Syro-Malabarsand Syro-Malankaras run manyCatholic schools of all types andlevels, where the normal nation-al courses of study are taught.“And the costs are largely borneby the Churches. They are fre-quented not only by Catholicsbut also by a large number ofHindu students because of thevery high level of the educationimparted. And it is thanks to theCatholic schools that Kerala isthe most educated state of India.“In India, Catholics – of Latin,the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara Rite – number around17 million faithful: less than 2%of India’s population.

All together the three churchesrun twenty-five thousand schools.Not to mention thousands ofhomes for widows and orphans,shelters for lepers and AIDS pa-tients, hospitals and nursinghomes. Kerala, where Christiansmake up 22% of the population,can also boast the highest level offemale education in India. It is alsothe state with the greatest numberof readers. Since 2008 a weeklyedition of L’Osservatore Ro-mano, edited by the DiscalcedCarmelites of the Province ofMalabar is printed in the local lan-guage, Malayalam. In addition,Kerala is the state with the highestrate of religious pluralism: inshort, an example of ongoing co-existence.

“The Catholic schools, whichare open to all, teach the nationalcurriculum. In addition there arespecific courses for Christian stu-dents that include doctrine, ethicsand morals”.

Ecclesiastical Colleges

50 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

The rector of the Institute, Father Varghese Kurisuthara

Holy Mass in the Syro-Malabarrite celebrated in the Romanchurch of Santa Maria in Portico in Campitelli

What is the reason for thegreat vitality of the Syro-Mal-abar Church, which, with overfour million faithful, is the mostvigorous Eastern Church andthe one with the most rapidgrowth in Christendom? It alonefurnishes almost 70% of the120,000 Catholic vocationsthroughout India. Almost all thedioceses in this state have a jun-ior seminary and it is one of thefew regions able to ‘export ’priests and nuns.

“It depends on the families,where attachment to the An-gelus, the Holy Rosary and HolyMass, is very strong and heart-warming”, says the rector. “Fa-thers and mothers, but a lsograndparents, teach childrenfrom infancy the sign of the crossand the first prayers. In short,they take it all in with their milk.Consequently, the family is anenvironment that fosters theflowering of priestly vocations,something held in high esteem inthe family”.

The diocese of Adilabad:a flourishing ChurchThe Syro-Malabar Cathol icpriests live in a paradoxical situa-tion: their Church is among themost flourishing of all Christen-dom, but outside of Kerala they

find themselves on the mission.“To carry out our mission and tobetter train the faithful accordingto our traditions, we need ourown eparchies. That’s why wehave been asking the Holy Fa-ther for a long time for greater ju-risdiction outside Kerala”, saysDon Prince PanengadanDevassy, in Rome to study for alicentiate in Biblical Theology atthe Urbaniana.

He comes from the city ofThrissur, where he attendedfrom first to tenth grade, that isfrom primary to high school,and then, two years of seminaryin Bangalore, Karnataka State,to study philosophy. “I went,then, on the miss ion in theeparchy of Adilabad in the Stateof Andhra Pradesh, in central-eastern India”.

Adilabad is one of the most re-cent Indian eparchies, created byPope John Paul II on 23 June1999. Before that it was part ofthe diocese of Chanda, whichextended into the states of Ma-harashtra and Andhra Pradesh,with two different languages andcultures.

The first Syro-Malabar priestscame to Adilabad in 1962. Therethey founded school facilities topromote access to education forthe poorest children.

In the villages, then, the mis-sionaries worked hard to im-prove the social conditions ofpeople, especially in terms ofhealth and nutrition. And manypeople, attracted by the wonder-ful witness of the missionaries,have chosen the Christian life.Today the Church of Adilabadhas 15,000 Catholics, with sixtypriests, all Indians, twenty-fourof them diocesan and with sevenlocal vocations.

Don Prince is an eyewitnessto such success. “To be able tocommunicate with the people Ihad to study their language. Athome in Kerala, Malayalam is

5130DAYS N. 10 - 2011

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Left, students of theInstitute in the refectory

Below, St John of Damascusin an icon painted byLauretta Viscardi, kept in the Institute lobby

spoken. In the State of AndhraPradesh, Telugu. The writing isalso completely different”, hetells us.

After the years spent in Adil-abad, Don Prince had to gonorth to Madhya Pradesh, tostudy theology for four years.Then he was ordained priest and

went back again to Adilabad foranother two years. I asked whatit means to be on mission in themidst of an ocean of Hindus anda large number of Muslims. “It’sthe wonder of Indian culture. In-dia has given rise to diverse reli-gions and has welcomed all thereligions of the world. The Indi-ans are tolerant, peaceful andwelcome everyone. Respectingother religions and accepting thegood with open hands, whereverit may come from, is characteris-tic of Indian culture. Everyone is

free to believe in the religion hechooses”, the young priest adds.“For us to go on the mission is tofirst of all visit the villages scat-tered in the large rural areas in-habited by agricultural laborersand stockbreeders. We say noth-ing about Jesus and the Gospel,but we tend the sick and help the

poorest. Then we ask parents ifthey want to entrust their chil-dren to study with us for free. Al-most al l agree. And then webring the chi ldren into ourschools where we teach the cur-riculum subjects. That’s the firstphase of the mission. That is theone in which we try to build astrong relationship with peoplethrough help with their needs.Many missionaries have strivento bring electricity and water toisolated villages.

52 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Above, children in the Catholic schoolof Champakulam in Kerala duringlunch; right, The Last Supper, an iconpainted by Don Jacob Kooroth, kept in the refectory of the Institute

Ecclesiastical Colleges

5330DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Later, only when a relation-ship of mutual trust is estab-l ished, we try to make themaware of the dignity of life andhuman rights. Sometimes wecollaborate to rid them of ex-ploitation and injustice”, DonPrince Panengadan Devassy tellsus. “After some time serving invillages and schools, it happensvery often that people ask usabout our religion and our God.At that point we speak explicitlyof Jesus. We don’t preach Jesus

by force and don’t tryto convert anyonewith incentives. Butwe seek to bear wit-ness to Jesus throughour l ives, loving al lpeople without dis-tinction. Our way ofl i fe at tracts peoplewho are led to ask uswhere our capacity toaccommodate every-one, r ich and poor,comes from, and whoJesus real ly is andwhat the Gospel is. Tofacilitate the under-standing of our faith,we project sometimesfilms on the life of theLord in some room orpublic space in the vil-lage, since almost noone owns a television.The splendid thing is

that many of these people, espe-cially children, gain a personalexperience of Jesus, becausethrough prayer and a personalrelationship with Him, they see acorrespondence in their lives,get an answer to their questions,as never happened before. Ofcourse, many do not want toknow about Christ. But thosewho say ‘yes’, gain a very strongfaith. In short, we don’t convertanyone, but the people convertthemselves through the action ofdivine grace. It’s their choice. Inthis context, the State guaran-tees the freedom to believe in thereligion chosen by each. That isthe third phase of the mission”,concludes Don Prince. “It’s un-derstandable that all the peoplewe serve and help do not reachthe same point. Many remain inthe first or second phase. Never-theless, they don’t put a halt tothe ministry. We continue toserve those people, because our

activities are not aimed at con-version, which is the work of theHoly Spirit, but at a respectfuland free proposal”.

Meanwhile Benedict Kurian,of the Syro-Malankara CatholicChurch, joins the conversation.He comes from the eparchy ofMavelikara, suffragan of thearcheparchy of Trivandrum. Or-dained in 2002, he was parishpriest in Amburi, in Kerala forfour years. In Rome since 2007,he is about to gain his doctoratein Eastern Canon Law with a the-sis on the rights and duties of thelaity. “I really love Rome. Notleast because in India, at school,

we study the history ofthe Roman Empire indepth”, he says.

I ask him what isparticular about theS y r o - M a l a n k a r aCatholics, who onlycame back into com-munion with Rome in1930. “The differencefrom our Malabarbrethren lies only inthe liturgy, ours is theSy ro -An t i o chene .Whereas that of theSyro-Malabar comesfrom the Chaldean

tradition. One of the peculiaritiesof our liturgy is that we will cele-brate Mass with the priest alwaysfacing the altar, and our faithfulare extremely attached to ourliturgical tradition”, explainsDon Benedict.

“The reunification with thePope, the Successor to Peter,was achieved by five people. To-day we are 500,000. And in ourChurch two female congrega-t ions have been founded –known as the Sisters of the Imi-tation of Christ and Daughtersof Mary – and a male congrega-tion, the Order of Imitation ofChrist.

We Syro-Malankaras have thesame apostolic tradition, thesame origin as the Syro-Mal-abars. We too are heirs of theChristians of St Thomas. Andwe, like our Malabar brethren,are asking the Holy MotherChurch of Rome to help us to ex-tend our jurisdiction”. q

Left, students of St Paul’s JuniorSeminary in the Diocese of Irinjalakuda, in Kerala

Below, a baptism in the church of Saint Alex, in Calangute, in the state of Goa

54 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

The words of Pope Benedict XVI in his native land maybe read as an earnest appeal to return to the essentialsand to draw conclusions from this. So says Hans-Gert Pötteringformer president of the European Parliament

The Pope remains true to himself: bear witness to your faith

by Hans-Gert Pöttering

Apostolic journey to Germany

The visit of Benedict XVI wasa moving event. A GermanPope came to his native

land. He brought a profoundlytheological message: the renewalof the Church can only occurthrough the openness to conver-sion and from a renewed faith. Hespoke so passionately and con-vincingly of God, so much so thatit was surprising even from a the-ologian successor of Peter such asBenedict XVI.

His speech to the German Bun-destag in Berlin at the beginning ofhis visit was especially significant.On that occasion he discussed theessence of political activity, the ba-sis of law and the distinction be-tween good and evil. He set his re-flections within the context of thegreat traditions of Europeanthought: Greek philosophy, Ro-man law and Jewish Biblical faithin God, that form the “profoundidentity of Europe”. In the searchfor a common foundation for theconstruction of its own law Europeshould not limit itself to a purelypositivistic vision. This is a reduc-tion of the entire human reality. Hecompared such a limitation to aconcrete building with no win-dows. Cut off from everything thathappens outside, mankind atro-phies. Whereas, in a global vision,it could gather all the influences.Here the ‘ecology of mankind’came into play, as in the encyclicalCaritas in Veritate. The emer-gence of the environmental move-ment was an “invocation of freshair” that needed to be heeded.Mankind should listen to the lan-guage of nature. If he pays atten-

tion to it and accepts it as some-thing that is not produced by him-self, man’s freedom finds fulfill-ment. But since the rules can onlycome from the will, they presup-pose the recognition of the “creat-ing reason” of God. And BenedictXVI asked in an almost defiantmanner “Is it really without senseto ask oneself whether the objec-tive reason, that is expressed in na-ture, does not presuppose a creat-ing reason, a Creator Spiritus?”.

The Pope insisted particularlywith the politicians on the exam-ple of King Solomon, who hadwanted a “docile heart” so hemight search for the true law toserve justice and peace. Since thePope’s speech to the Bundestagwas primarily theological andabout principle, he did not addressthe specific needs of the GermanChurch on that occasion, al-though many had expected andhoped for this. His speech at theKonzerthaus in Freiburg, which ir-ritated some, was quite different.There he addressed the GermanChurch predominantly. He invitedhis hearers to focus on essentials,leaving aside all reasoning of an in-stitutional nature. The concept of‘worldliness’ might be misunder-stood, but these thoughts of Bene-dict XVI are not new. He had al-ready expressed them in the late’sixties. They express a basic vi-sion, self-criticism on the wholeChurch. He understood it in a his-torical perspective and drew atten-tion to the fact that the witness ofthe Church would be clearer if itwere free “of material and politicalburdens”. Then it could better de-vote itself to Christian values in thereal world, be truly open to theworld. The Church would be morecredible the more it concentratedon its own specific area, on its cen-tral message.

The Pope had conceived allthis, as he himself said, not as anew tactic to get more considera-tion for the Church, but as the willto seek “complete sincerity, thatcensors nothing of the truth of ourday, but fully realizes the faith intoday”.

The Germans particularly, aspointed out by the Archbishop ofFreiburg im Breisgau Robert Zol- ¬

5530DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Left, Benedict XVI visitingthe Bundestag, in Berlin, 22 September 2011;below, the meeting with Catholics engaged in the Church and in society, at the Konzerthaus in Freiburg,25 September

REFLECTIONS OF A GERMAN POLITICIAN

litsch, should not allow themselvesto be diverted, through their zeal-ous organizing, structuring and re-forming, from this search for God.However, since the Pope did notgive other practical indicationsabout what he meant by “worldlyburdens” there is need for furthertalks and discussions about whatconsequences are to be drawn soas to promote the faith as thePope indicated. It will be seen inthe next few months whether it isto be understood as a rejection ofthe German system of worship taxand successfully working Church-State relationship, as some haveinterpreted pushing a lot furtherahead, or whether his speech wasno more than a heartfelt appeal toreturn to basics and draw the con-sequences from them.

This invitation to focus on theessentials of the biblical messagewas not addressed only toCatholics in Germany, but also toEurope. An area in which the con-ditions of coexistence of Churchand State over the centuries havedeveloped in very different fashion.In this regard it should be recalledthat Article 17 of the Treaty of Lis-bon guarantees every Europeancountry the continuance of its tradi-tional relationship between Stateand Church. It is crucial to keep upthe dialogue with the Churches andintroduce into our policies the urg-ings that the Pope gave us specifi-cally in Germany. It is a matter ofthe implementation of Christianvalues in political practice.

In fact, Benedict XVI promot-ed just that in his homilies: faith inGod should not be something pri-vate, but should manifest itself insociety. He encouraged Chris-tians to engage fruitfully in societyand be as yeast. It is a question ofimprinting the social debate withChristian values, but also with ac-commodating mankind’s con-cerns and giving them backing.This the Pope said in his homily atFreiburg, the city of Caritas. Herehe explicitly thanked all thosewho care for their neighbor in thekindergartens and schools, but al-so for the needy and disabled inthe many social and charitable in-stitutions in Germany and world-wide. This is a very important

drive for politicians especially.Faith has consequences for oursociety and our public activity.Because of this it is necessaryfrom now on that Catholics en-gage in politics, in the economyand in society and also in socialservices that provide concretehelp.

In relation to this aspect, in Er-furt he praised the commitmentof Christians who because oftheir faith had opposed the totali-tarian regime in the GDR. De-spite adverse circumstances, theyremained faithful to Christ. Evennow in East Germany new waysare being sought to promote theChristian faith in circumstancessignificantly remote from the

56 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Left, Benedict XVI at the Konzerthaus in Freiburg at the meeting with Catholics involved in the Church and in society, 25 September; above, during the meetingwith the representatives of the Muslim communities in Germany in the Nunciature in Berlin, 23 September;below, at the end of the Mass celebrated in the parvis of the Cathedral of Erfurt, 24 September

Apostolic journey to Germany

faith and to speak specifically tothose seeking guidance and an-swers to the ultimate questions.

The bridge that Benedict XVIlaid down toward Muslims in themeeting in Berlin shows that thePontiff casts himself specifically as‘bridge builder’ for the public prac-tice of religion. He said quite ex-plicitly that he wished Muslimswould contribute to the commongood on the basis of their religion,and out of their faith defend thecause of peaceful coexistence insociety. Here, too, the recognitionof our type of relationship be-tween State and religion is reflect-ed, a relation which should also beavailable to Muslims.

Precisely because this trip wasfor the Pope above all about adeepening of faith, the desire forrapid concrete changes inevitablyhad to be disappointed. And thisalso applies to the issue of ecu-menism with the Evangel icalChurch in Germany. It was al-ready in itself an important sign, astage of historic importance thatthe Pope met the representativesof the Evangelical Church in the

Augustinian monastery in Erfurt.It is a place of great symbolic im-portance for German Protestants.There, Martin Luther lived andworked. Because of this the ges-ture itself was a sign of openness.Insistently and with an eye to thefuture, the Pope quoted Luther inhis search for a merciful God.Here he saw a glimpse of thegreat matters shared by the faithsas opposed to the secularizedworld: the great Churches mustrespond to the quest for God andmust keep alive the quest of Godin the secularized world. HereBenedict spoke of the foundationsof Christian faith in response tothe existential questions ‘wheredo we come from’ and ‘where arewe going’.

However, many had hopedthat the Pope would take an “un-ambiguous step in overcoming thedivision between the Churches”,as Norbert Lammert, President ofthe Bundestag, put it. In fact – inthe words of Archbishop RobertZollitsch – it is necessary to waitfor the German Bishops’ Confer-ence to translate the fundamentalreflections of the Pope and, to-gether with representatives of theEvangelical Church in Germany,to find a way forward to a deepen-ing of ecumenism. NikolausSchneider, president of the ‘Coun-cil of the Evangelical Church in

Germany’, spoke of an ‘ecu-menism of gifts’ and proposed thisas a way to continue the journeytogether. It is to be hoped that theproblems related to the shared lifeof faith in marriages and familiesmade up of members of differentChristian denominations, but alsothe limitations for the divorcedand remarried, can be reconsid-ered after the Pope’s visit and thatrealistic steps of reconciliation canbe made.

There questions left open aremany: it is certainly too early todraw up a balance sheet. The re-sults of multiple and intense meet-ings with the Pope, the urging andthe pleas he presented will bethought about in discussions anddebates in the coming weeks andmonths. There it will be seen howthe Church in Germany can sur-vive at the present time and howthe individual faithful can be wit-nesses to the faith in their milieu.

For me, as a politician and as aCatholic, the invitation remains toreflect on the principles of my poli-tics in the light of the suggestionsthat the Pope made during his vis-it. Benedict XVI with his message,not always easy, not always com-fortable, has led us Germans to re-flect. We owe him deep gratitudefor his words, for the encourage-ment to live the faith, for the visitto his native land. q

5730DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Left, Benedict XVI with Nikolaus Schneider, President of the Council of the EvangelicalChurch in Germany, in the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, 23 September; above, from the left, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Christian Wulffand his wife, the Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière (in the second row), the President of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert, and Chancellor Angela Merkel attend the Mass celebrated by Benedict XVI at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, 22 September 2011

REFLECTIONS OF A GERMAN POLITICIAN

58 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

by Giovanni Ricciardi

Tales from the missions

"I've always wanted to see with my own eyes what the oratory of Valdocco was like when Don Bosco was there.

My wish has been granted here, at the foot of the Andes".So said Cardinal Martini when he visited the mission of the Salesian

Ugo de Censi, founder of Operation Mato Grosso.We tell the story

From the Valtellina to the Andes

Father Ugo de Censi is eighty-sevenyears old today, and has spent sixtyas a priest in the Salesian Congre-

gation. Since 1976 he has lived in Chacas,a remote village in eastern Peru, at thefoot of the Andes, which remind him, intheir majesty, of the mountains of his na-tive Valtellina. A place where life is precar-ious, the means of subsistence must bewrenched every day from the mountain,and poverty is the common condition.

“Con los pobres de la tierra quiero yomi suerte echar” go the words of one ofthe most famous Latin American songs,Guantanamera, a verse that sums up, inits beauty, the beauty of the missionary ex-perience of Father Ugo, “I want to throwmy lot in with the poor of the world”.Throw in one’s lot, gamble, sow a seedthat has given exceptionally abundant fruitin Chacas, so much so that when CardinalMartini visited the mission to inaugurate ahouse donated by the diocese of Milan, hesaid: “I’ve always wanted to see with myown eyes what the oratory of Valdoccowas like when Don Bosco was there. Mywish has been granted here, at the foot ofthe Andes”.

Father Ugo returns now and then toItaly to meet the groups of volunteers whofor many years have lent him a hand withmonthly collections of groceries, clothing,and working for free to send money to themission: a nondenominational experi-ence, without a legal identity in theChurch, which brings together all thosewho are willing to lend a hand. It has notchanged its name since the 1970s: it iscalled Operation Mato Grosso. FatherUgo preaches on retreats for those whowant a more distinctly Catholic momentwithin the movement. The formulas aresimple, one prays according to the tradi-tion of the Church, one goes on one’sknees, also to confess. There are manypeople who silently take notes as the priestdictates, l ike an elementary schoolteacher, improvising very little. This yearthe theme was: ‘Bernadette and Aquerò’.The purpose of the retreat: ‘Learning tomake the sign of the cross well’.

The reference to Lourdes is no acci-dent, but a milestone in the life of this ‘live-

ly, playful and challenging’ Salesian, as de-fined by his superiors. But also in failinghealth. Tubercular spondylitis, diagnosedin the seminary, kept him in hospital forthree years. And the open fistula that hadkept him so long in bed closed up in frontof the grotto of Massabielle. So FatherUgo, finally recovered, could be ordaineda priest by Cardinal Schuster in 1951, inMilan Cathedral. “But the superiors”, hesays, “still considered me a hothead. Andso, ‘to rid me of a fondness for joking’,they gave me the post of spiritual directorof a male reformatory in Arese”. There heremained for over twenty years: “Andthere I learned that religious words areuseless. The kids who listened to my ser-mons, turned the other way. And finally,in the face of my disappointment, some-one said: ‘But have you looked at yourself?But do you see what you look like? At leasttry to like me a little’”.

And so, in the late ‘sixties, moved bythe stories of fellow missionaries whospoke of poverty and of the immenseneeds of the missions, he began travelingin South America, and organizing aid forthe Salesian charities. Until, in 1976,aged 52, he took the decision to settle inPeru, in Chacas. He was accompanied bysome of the kids who had come out of thereformatory in Arese. “I had lost a lot ofthe outer trappings of religion. But inChacas I became a child again. And I re-discovered the simple things of faith: thelife of Jesus and devotion, singing well inchurch, keeping your hands joined in

5930DAYS N. 10 - 2011

The sanctuary

of Pomallucay

in Peru (near which

the seminary

of the diocese

of Huari was opened

in 1992) designed

and built by

the volunteers

of Operation

Mato Grosso

Facing page,

Father Ugo de Censi

with Father

Daniele Badiali

Yanama, Peru,

in 1992

Operation Mato Grosso

¬

prayer. I took up those things again withthe mission boys”.

“For the moment I am a priest”, hewrote in the early months of his stay in theAndes: “Chacas has an enormous churchon Sundays it fills with people, all silent. Ifeel at home, I feel them my people. I liketo get them to sing. I feel they like me, I’dlike to know them one by one”. And again:“I believe that here I’ll really be an old-fash-ioned priest: catechism, singing, visitingthe sick, masses... with these people whoneed bread, roads, work, hygiene. To findsolutions to these needs I’ll get help fromthe boys of the Operation who will come”.

And that’s what happened in the yearsthat followed. With the help of the volun-teers of Operation Mato Grosso, FatherUgo established an impressive number ofcharitable institutions: schools for profes-sional wood carvers, for nurses and schoolteachers, a hospital in Chacas, homes fororphaned or abandoned children, repairand construction of bridges and roads,even the construction of a hydroelectricplant that supplies energy to the village.All these works are named after DonBosco or Mary Help of Christians, in thegenuine Salesian tradition. And of course,there had to be the oratory for thousandsof children and young people, who crowdit every Sunday.

‘You should come to Chacas’, writesone of his Salesian brothers and co-work-

ers of Father Ugo, ‘to get to know hishome, so you can discover the richness ofa heart as free as his, a heart with which itis easy to fall in love. You would discoverthat the home of Father Ugo is a squarewith no walls, no doors, not because therearen’t any but because they were throwndown by the people who crowded at thedoor to get into the house. A little like thePsalm says: ‘Of the Lord’s vineyard theboundary walls have been thrown downand every wayfarer makes harvest’”.

In recent years, hundreds of Italian vol-unteers have dedicated a few months tohelp Father Ugo in his mission. Somestayed for more than a year, others still de-cided to stay forever. Others have felt,through the priest’s example, the desire tofollow his path in the priesthood. FatherUgo founded a seminary for aspirants tothe priesthood, who are then ‘donated’ tothe various dioceses of Peru, since Opera-tion Mato Grosso has no legal standing inthe Church. Among them, there was ayoung Italian priest, Father Daniele Badi-ali, who ended his earthly existence in1997, murdered by a group of gunmenwho abducted him for a big ransom.

Father Daniele had developed his voca-tion in Operation Mato Grosso. Two yearsof volunteer work in Chacas from 1984 to1986, led him to take the final decision.He returned to Faenza, studied in theBologna regional seminary, and immedi-ately after his ordination for the Faenza-Modigliana diocese was sent as a fideidonum priest to the diocese of Huari inPeru, to help Father Ugo at his mission,taking charge, on 1 September 1991, ofthe parish of San Luis, in the CordilleraBlanca, a vast area, with more than sixtyvillages scattered over the mountains, thatcan be reached only on foot or on horse-

60 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Above, the new

church of San Luis,

in Peru, which

opened on

18 March 2007;

top, right,

the students

of the vocational

school for wood

carvers, founded

by Father Ugo,

at work on

the decoration

of the church choir

Tales from the missions

back. Father Daniele tried to be in contactwith all communities, even the most dis-tant, and his parish house became a pointof reference for the many needs of thepoor. In a letter describing this situation: “Ihave stolen the time to write from the peo-ple who are constantly knocking at mydoor asking for food, medicine, asking,asking, asking... My head whirls with thesecontinuous assaults, it’s difficult for me toleave the house, I immediately see themrunning after me, looking for me, to ask. Idon’t know what to do... I’d run away inthe face of all this, because I can’t say yesand I well know that I can’t deny help... I’mcalled to give everything away knowingthat I’ll start over again tomorrow and Imust give everything away again. Thethorn given to me by the poor is a constantpain that I’d like to soothe but it’s not up tome. It’s noon, I’m going to eat with theboys of the taller [workshop, ed], there’san old woman here on the doorstep. Shedoesn’t speak, others will beg till you’retired out. Her silence has gone to myheart, I close my eyes, I go down to get abowl of soup, the pasta is Italian: I give it toher, I’m ashamed, it is she who must begJesus for the grace to save me. She thanksme with a smile that seems very sweet tome. And if behind this dirty little oldwoman there really were Jesus?”.

He began Oratory work with the chil-dren. In March 1992 he prepared fourhundred for First Communion. In Octoberof that year, Giulio Rocca, a volunteer andfriend of Daniele’s, who was also develop-ing a vocation for the priesthood, waskilled by a terrorist group. Daniele wroteof his death: “Giulio died like a martyr, hedid not choose it, the shape of things led

him to die a violent death similar to that ofthe martyrs. The path of Operation MatoGrosso is now clear for me also: to giveone’s life to the point of martyrdom. All ofthis frightens me, but at the same time Ifeel a peace inside me...”.

In the following years, apart from visitsto Italy for health reasons, he dedicatedbody and soul to the work of the mission.He built an Andean refuge with his boys toaccommodate tourists and climbers andmake some money to help the very poor.In 1997, despite a planned return to Italy,he decided to stay in Peru, also taking onthe commitments of Father Ugo, who hadcome to Italy to preach on the volunteers’retreats. He spent eight weeks in theYanama area preparing eight hundredchildren for Confirmation. Every Fridayhe prepared them for Confession: it wasthe most important t ime for FatherDaniele, who in that last year of his life de-scribed it as follows: “Today is the day ofthe Passion. I’m speechless, I just want tocry. I felt the cold. I wanted the hands ofthe boys, I wasn’t asking that they come inmy place, but just that they give theirhand. What does it mean to give one’shand to someone who is suffering? I had totalk about the death of Jesus, I couldn’t tellit as a fable. The distraction of the boyscame straight to my heart like the devil’slaughter: ‘Why are you striving, why areyou worrying. It’s all futile...’. At least theyhad to pray or keep their hands joined. Butone can’t expect, one just has to give... toforgive. I felt like a condemned man, thesame scene of the Passion was repeatedhere. I received all the blows. I had to ac-

6130DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Father Ugo

and Father

Daniele during

a procession

Father Daniele

hearing confession

Operation Mato Grosso

¬

cept them all, it would have beena mistake not to want them. I onlyhope that this suffering is of useto someone. I offer it. My God,only of You did I want to speak tothe children”.

On his return to the parish ofSan Luis on 10 March 1997, hebegan the preparation for theFirst Communion of five hundredchildren: two weeks of intensesharing, with catechism, prayerand games, up to Holy Thursday wherethey were to receive Jesus for the firsttime. Father Daniele worked tirelessly andawaited the return of Father Ugo fromItaly. In those days he wrote: “I find I amincapable of abandoning myself, of leav-ing everything to God: even if it seems I’mstaking everything, I find that I still have tobet on God. Being useless servants is trulycalling on the master, leaving everything inhis hands, not wanting to lead anything.Being servants of Jesus is really calling up-on him with his own weapons: goodness,

forgiveness, surrender, pa-tience, a smile... dying”.

Six days later, on Sunday 16March, after celebrating eveningMass in the village of Yauya, hesuddenly found the road blockedby stones. An armed gunmanappeared demanding a hostage.Rosamaria, an Italian aid work-er, was about to get off the jeep,but Daniele stopped her: “I’ll go,you stay”. In a note to be deliv-ered to Father Ugo there was ademand for ransom. But twodays later, on 18 March, FatherDaniele’s body was found on astone-covered slope. Days be-fore, while still at liberty, he hadwritten to a friend in Italy aboutthe ‘good fight’ of faith: ‘Aboveall one realizes that the battle onGod’s side is already lost... onehas to die on the battlefield forGod to come in and defeat theenemy, the devil. All we have todo is prepare the coming ofGod. It costs hugely, because wehave to give our life for a God

who counts ever less in the lives of men.You’ll soon see that the God you desire toserve isn’t much sought after and well-liked by men. And the more you go on, themore it will seem that this God disappearsfrom the lives of men, even from our own.He leaves you alone to represent him onthe battlefield. You’ll often ask yourself:‘But when will the Lord arrive?’ You won’thear any reply, you yourself must give theanswer with your life. The general willcome in when and how He decides... Wedo not know the moment nor the hour...The only sure things are the instructionsleft for fighting the enemy: ‘Go, sell whatyou have and give it to the poor... If youwant to be my disciple, take up my crossand follow me ...’. Your companion in bat-tle, Father Daniele’. The diocese of Faen-za-Modigliana has now begun the processfor his beatification.

Out of Father Daniele‘s martyrdom hascome a blossoming of vocations in Opera-tion Mato Grosso. Today the seminary ofthe diocese of Huari has about forty aspi-rants to the priesthood and Father Ugo’smission is more active and prosperous thanever. Although he, at nearly ninety, doesnot want to appoint a successor, nor give aRule to his charity: “If it is God’s work”, heoften repeated, “then it will remain. Other-wise it’s better it come to an end”.

At his venerable old age, he reallyseems to become a child again: “God isnot what I have”, he says, “but what I lack,and I most want. I can’t help but recognizemy unbelief. Being a sinner, incapable ofliving by God, being a poor man who onlyneeds God’s mercy, needs God. May Godtake me and make of me what He wants.But let Him take me”. q

62 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Operation Mato Grosso

You can contact us by e-mail at in-fo@donbosco3a.itFor information about OMG, thework groups in Italy, the summerwork camps and how to helpOMG, contact info@operazione-matogrosso.it, or visit the sitewww.operazionematogrosso.it.

To contribute to the process of

beatification and canonization

of Father Daniele Badiali (givingoneʼs testimony on FatherDaniele, offering letters written byhim, providing stories of miracu-lous events attributed to his inter-cession), contact Don AlbertoLuccaroni, judge delegate. To re-ceive information and publica-tions on Father Daniele, pleasecontact Don Mirko Santandrea,vice-postulator.

For more information visit the sitewww.padredanielebadiali.it

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Tales from the missions

Father Daniele

with the young

people

of the Yanama

oratory in 1992

La Foresteria

L’Aquila - Pescara

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Napoli

FirenzeRIETI

FROSINONE

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‡

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L’Aquila - Pescara

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An area of great charm rich in art and culture with its monasteries of inestimable historical value - theirarchitecture, rare frescoes, uniquelibraries and fascinating museums.

A heritage of art, culture and spirituality in the beautiful natural setting of the Simbruini Mountains

St. Scolastica’s Abbey, just outside Subiaco, wasfounded by St. Benedict

in the VI century. Of interest are the Romanic

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LOCATION: 38 miles from Rome, 20 miles from Tivoli, 10 miles from Fiuggi

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64 30DAYS N. 10 - 2011

The small and very recentbook by I laria Ramell i, aphilologist and historian, a

scholar of early Christianity, con-sists, as she indicates in the pref-ace, of a selection of short informa-tive articles that appeared inAvvenire in 2009 and 2010. How-ever, it is not at all, as one might be-lieve, a simple reprint of essaysbrought together by a theme, nor amere compilation, but a dense andcareful summary which describes ina nutshell, though omitting nothingnecessary or fundamental, of theresults of the work on early Christi-anity. She has conducted with rig-orous scholarly methodology (inparticular as regards the philologi-cal analysis of texts and the evalua-tion of historical sources), over thelast twenty years.

So, though addressed primarilyto non-specialist readers, the vol-ume is of great utility also for thescholar, for it presents itself – andthis is the particular achievement ofthe author and the merit of thework – as an extensive indexraisoné, that sorts and organizes avast production (every necessarybibliographic indication is alwaysshown at the appropriate place),and from which emerges the themeof her research, coherent and uni-fied even if ‘scattered’ throughout anumber of scholarly journals.

Given the structure of the work,it is not possible in a review tomention every topic dealt with, ifnot without making a lengthy list:something I do not want to do, lim-iting myself to the topic that ap-pears most original and significant.

So first of all it should be saidthat the volume is divided into fourdistinct sections.

In the first, which deals with thefigure of Jesus in the non-Christiansources of the first century, thereare two texts, the authenticity ofwhich is shown, that come from aperiod prior to the well-known pas-sages of Tacitus: the letter of MaraBar Serapion, a pagan stoic, writ-ten around 73, and a passage fromthe Jewish Antiquities (xvii, 63-64) by the historian Flavius Jose-phus, a Pharisee who wrote soonafter the fall of Jerusalem (whichoccurred in 70), ‘it is precisely theextraneity to Christianity of the twosources’, writes the author (p. 10),‘that make Mara and Josephus pre-cious and not ‘suspect’ witnesses tothe historical figure of Jesus, andeven if they do not believe in hisbodily resurrection, they documentthe faith the Christians had ‘be-cause he appeared to them aliveagain after three days’ (Jewish An-tiquities xvii, 64).

Later, in the third section, thepresence of a number of references

to Christianity in 1-2nd century pa-gan novels and satires is highlight-ed: the Satyricon of Petronius, theTale of Callirhoe by Chariton, theMetamorphoses of Apuleius,works in which there are allusions,obvious at times, to the facts narrat-ed in the Gospels. And the fourthsection deals with the historicaltraces of the first spread of Christi-anity from the Middle East to India:in particular the story of King Abgarof Edessa (whose relationship withthe Emperor Tiberius appears to bewell-founded), the evangelization ofEdessa by Addai (the Syriac nameof Thaddeus, one of the seventy dis-ciples of Jesus sent out by the Apos-tle Thomas), that of Mesopotamiaby Mari (a disciple of Thaddeus,converted by him), the mention ofthe mandylion (the achiropita im-age of Jesus that is compared to theHoly Shroud), the mission of Pan-taenus to India (made by the Stoicphilosopher, a convert to Christian-ity and a teacher of Origen andClement of Alexandria, between180 and 190).

But I would like to dwell moreextensively on the second sectionwhich deals with early Christianityin Rome.

In it the author shows that Chris-tianity was known immediately inRome as evidenced by the senatus-consultum of 35, reported by Ter-

Books

Ilaria Ramelli, I cristiani e l’impero romano.In memoria di Marta Sordi [Christians and the Roman empire. In memory of Marta Sordi], Marietti, 1820, Genoa - Milan 2011, 96pp., € 12.00

The ancient sources on the relationship

between early Christianity and Rome, discussed

in the studies of historian Ilaria Ramelli,

contradict the common opinion that Roman

power was an ideological enemy of the Christians

by Lorenzo Bianchi

The loyalty of the Christiansand the tolerance of Rome

tullian, whereby the Senate reject-ed the proposal of the EmperorTiberius to give legitimate status toChristian belief. Considered dubi-ous by many, it is confirmed as his-torical by Ilaria Ramelli with new ar-guments in addition to those al-ready given by Marta Sordi andCarsten Thiede, and in particularon the basis of a fragment of theNeoplatonic philosopher Porphyry(233-305), who certainly cannotbe suspected, as is Tertullian, ofapologetic intentions. In rejectingthe resurrection of Jesus, Porphyrysays that if he had truly risen, hewould not have appeared to ob-scure people (as the apostles were),but ‘to many contemporary menworthy of trust, and especially tothe Senate and people of Rome,whereon they, amazed at his won-ders, would not have been able,with a unanimous senatusconsul-tum, to emit a death sentence, withthe accusation of impiety, on thosewho were obedient to him’.

The anti-Christian law of Romewas the work of the Senate, butTiberius did not go ahead with theaccusations and, up to 62, Chris-tians were not condemned as suchby any Roman authority. The atti-tude of tolerance of the imperialcourt toward Christians is also evi-denced by the correspondence be-tween St Paul and Seneca, whichhas come down to us by a differentroute than that of the Pauline cor-pus. Summarily dismissed as apoc-ryphal in the common opinion ofmodern criticism, it is here re-assessed on the basis of new andabundant and particularly com-pelling philological and lexical con-siderations, as probably authentic,at least as regards most of the let-ters (or rather short notes) thathave survived, bearing the dates ofthe years 58 and 59. Those werethe years in which (if we accept thehigh chronology) Paul had just ar-rived in Rome to undergo the em-peror’s judgment, and, whileawaiting trial, enjoyed benevolentmilitary custody and was free topreach, spreading Christianityeven in the Praetorium (‘in all thePraetorium and everywhere it isknown I am in chains for Christ’,Phil 1, 13) and in the imperialcourt (‘All the saints greet you, es-

pecially those of Caesar’s house-hold’, Phil 4, 22 ).

The relationship of toleranceand indeed benevolence of Romanimperial power towards the earlyChristians – at least until Neroturned authoritarian in 62 and theunleashing of persecution after firebroke out in Rome on 19 July 64(a persecution that as Tacitus tellsus, Annals XV, 44, and Clementof Rome, I Corinthians V, 3-7 –VI, 1, was fueled by envy and de-nunciation of Christians) – de-

scribed by Ilaria Ramelli in the sec-ond section, sends us back neces-sarily to the title of the book. Infact, the author takes word forword the view of a fundamentalwork of her teacher, Marta Sordi,who for more than two decadesheld the chair in Ancient History atthe Università Cattolica del SacroCuore in Milan (I cristiani e l’im-pero romano, published in 1984,that followed, summarized and up-dated the previous volume Il cris-tianesimo e Roma, published in1965). Ilaria Ramelli follows herteacher not only in the method of

rigorous screening, and carefulanalysis of the historical sources,but also in her basic idea: that theopposition, which the persecutionundoubtedly shows, betweenthose who administered Romanpower and the Christians, was notthe outcome, at least in its deepestlevel, of a political clash or classstruggle, as a still widespread prej-udice claims, but had differentcauses, causes related mostly tothe religious sphere. The historicaldocuments show that the attitudeof the early Christians toward theimperial power was from the out-set always characterized by lealtyand respect for its authority. It istherefore historically incorrect tosee in the Roman Empire a partic-ularly malign embodiment of pow-er and the enemy of the Church.Indeed on the contrary – I may add– it was the Roman Empire, as sug-gested by the interpretation that StJohn Chrysostom (Homily IV, On

the Second Epistle to the Thessa-lonians, PG 62, 485) gave to thewords of St Paul, that seems tostand as an obstacle to the real en-emy of the Church, the Antichrist:‘And now you know what is re-straining [the Antichrist], that hemay be revealed in his time. Themystery of lawlessness is already atwork. But the one who restrains isto do so only for the present, untilhe is removed from the scene.’(2Thess 2, 6-7). What, or who,holds back the mystery of iniquity,according to St John Chrysostom,is the imperial power of Rome. q

6530DAYS N. 10 - 2011

Above, St John Chrysostom(ca. 344-407);right, the Coliseum

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