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 “The bond between Eucharist
and charity”, “The yes of God to man” and “Evangelisation and service”
are the three fundamental choices, which characterise the pastoral note
of the Italian Bishops at the conclusion of the fourth ecclesial
national congress of Verona in the past month of October. The document,
which was made known at the end of June, proposes a re-launching of the
work-lines emerged from Verona and inserts itself –as Monsignor Angelo
Bagnasco, president of Cei and Archbishop of Genova, explained with his
intervention in the National Congress of the various diocesan Caritas in
Montecatini Terme- in the furrow of the encyclical on Christian love by
Benedict XVI. We have consulted Monsignor Vittorio Peri, from the
diocese of Assisi –Nocera Umbra- Gualdo Tadino, where he carried on his
office as Vicar General, on the most interesting hints of the note.
Ordinary in canon law, Principal of the Theology Institute in Assisi and
national assistant of the Italian sportive Centre, he is at present the
national president of the apostolic Union of the clergy and the diocesan
Episcopal vicar for culture.
“In
this open yard, the contribution of the believers at the ethical,
spiritual, cultural and political level is essential”, this is what we
read in the recently published pastoral note on the fourth ecclesial
congress in Verona. To you, how and which modality should be used to
actuate this invitation of Cei? How to welcome it specially with what
concerns the Women Religious.
The
image of the open yard, used by John Paul II on the World Day of Prayer
for peace (Assisi, 1986) inviting all men and women to build up peace,
comes back now with the Pastoral Note of the Bishops at the conclusion
of the fourth Ecclesial Congress of Verona. The image is suggestive. In
fact, it says that in the yard of the new evangelisation, including the
three main areas of the proclamation-catechesis, liturgy and charity,
all the believers must be able to find their place: obviously, also the
women religious, according to modality coherent to their own peculiar
form of life. Mountains of pages have been written on this modality and
it is not advisable to add more pages to them.
I think
that it is more useful to seek such answers to some questions as they
may not be taken for granted. For instance, are the formation cycles for
the young sisters based on the very urgent task of communicating the
Gospel in an all together changed world, different from what it was ten
years ago; or are they substantially modelled after the needs of a
culture totally extinct? Is their future seen in terms of housework,
intra moenia, or on the unavoidable perspective of getting qualified
for pastoral services? In this case, is offered the cultural and
theological formation adequate for the fulfilment of these tasks?
Moreover, are the traditional external signs of religious life still
meaningful: what do they mean today? What is the valence of their
communication codes? These may sound as uncomfortable interrogatives
but, as the Bishops say in the Catechism of the adult, “the absence of
questions and research is more dangerous than wrong answers” (Page 42).
In the document entitled “Regenerated for a living hope: Witnesses to
the great yes of God to man” they invoke the respect for the dignity of
the human person and its centrality in every moment of life, starting
from the economic, political and social choices of the Country. Is it
the matter of a central point for the future of the Italian system on
which, according to its privileged observatory, it rests with a precise
strategy?
Given
the apodictic statements, for instance, of the Universal Declaration
of man’s rights issued by he United States (1948), or the encyclical
Mater et Magistra by John XXIII (1961), it could look superfluous
to reiterate the centrality of the dignity of the person.
However, the Note goes back to this theme (no.16) by mentioning the
“anthropological question”, namely the question on what man is and what
it means to be a man. In fact, when we put aside the so called
“questions of sense”, the value of human life is always at risk.
Moreover, there is the ampler “question of the truth”: is it possible to
reach any truth that is not subjective and provisional, so as to found
universally shared ethical behaviours? Diverging answers to these
questions cannot but generate diverging political, economic, scientific
choices.
All
this highlights the need that the ecclesial communities must become also
schools where we learn to reflect on the great problems of the
contemporary culture.
A not secondary part is dedicated to the action of the laity whose
ecclesial commitment is re-launched. To you, which strategy is seen to
be most opportune for this re-launching?
How
could the Pastoral Note put the lay believers in the second line, when
in the yard of the new evangelisation they are 98% of the workers? Here
are some statements of urgency: “accelerating the hour of the laity”;
acknowledging the specific role of the Christian couples”; creating in
the Christian communities spaces where they can speak”; creating typical
forms of spirituality for the laity”; re-vitalising the “consultations
of lay aggregations” at every level.
We
could say also that there is nothing new in all this, and it is true.
However, if we are here speaking again about it, we realise that we have
not taken into due consideration the basic document Christifideles
laici by John Paul (1988). Nevertheless, we need to persevere
because gutta cavat lapidem, as the Latin ancestors would say,
and because sooner or later “the sleeping giant”, as somebody defines
the laity, will wake up.
In your role as Episcopal vicar for the culture in the diocese of Umbria
–inedited for not being yet present in the 226 Italian dioceses- which
problems do you find to be faced?
The
office is just recent and scarcely present in our dioceses: we do not
have, therefore, many references about the tasks to be fulfilled.
However, I would say that its primary task is that of favouring the
cultural thickness of the entire pastoral action of the Church. More
than planning further initiatives, it tends to bring to evidence the
need that every pastoral activity may promote in the baptised persons
the capacity of thinking, of reflecting on the foundations and
exigencies of faith. “A faith that does not become culture –as John
Paul II said in 1982- , is a faith that is not fully accepted and not
faithfully lived”. A Christian who does not think is unable to give the
reason of his hope, to confront himself with other currents of thought,
to give his own opinion. In a few words: he is cut out…
This
highlights the need that all the ecclesial communities –including the
religious institutions- are places where one learns to act, but also to
think of faith aiming at being able to live it and to witness to it
adequately. The difficulty is just here: to organise is easier than to
reflect, to confront and verify; the urgency of things to be done
prevails always over the exigencies of reflection, without thinking
that, not rarely, even activity is considered an abstract activity.
It is,
therefore, very opportune the repeated invitation of Benedict XVI, “to
widen the spaces of rationality”.
To promote the cultural growth of the faithful is not an easy task. How
would you propose to reach this goal? Has the recent visit of the Pope
been advantageous in this sense?
Going
to Assisi for the eighth centenary of the conversion of Benedict XVI,
the Pope not only contrasted various religious communities, but he also
told them very demanding things. Referring to the new unitary asset
wanted by him for the diocese, Benedict XVI revealed “the need that
persons and communities of consecrated life, even of pontifical right,
should insert themselves organically in the life of the particular
Church, according to their Constitutions and the laws of the Church.
Having the right to be accepted and respected because of their charism,
these communities must avoid to live like “islands”, by integrating
themselves with conviction and generosity in the service and in the
pastoral plan adopted by the Bishop for the whole diocesan community”.
These
are words of enormous actuality for the religious communities in Assisi
as well as in every particular Church, in perfect syntony with the
communion ecclesiology of Vatican II.
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