Rediscovering the faith, rediscovering the Council
Rome (AsiaNews) - The Year of Faith begins October 11th, convoked by Benedict XVI for believers to help them rediscover the enthusiasm of faith and missionary zeal towards a world in which God has become largely "an Unknown ". Along the same lines the Synod of Bishops opens dedicated to the new evangelization. As he himself explained in the message "Porta Fidei" (n. 5), for the proclamation of the Year of Faith, the pope chose October 11 as the starting date because it coincides with the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. This year is an incentive to re-read and "understand ... the texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers", as defined by John Paul II " a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century that is beginning." Benedict XVI has urged us to re-read and rediscover them, "guided by a correct hermeneutic," so they may be "a great force for the ever necessary renewal of the Church."
AsiaNews has decided to offer our readers a few installments
dedicated to the Council, its documents, the testimonies of the protagonists,
difficulties and future prospects. We
begin this series with the document on mission, the Ad Gentes, and with an
exceptional protagonist, Fr. Piero Gheddo.
On October 11 next, we celebrate 50 years since the Second Vatican Council. I was 33
years old at the time and I had been in Catholic journalism for ten years. I
attended the Council as a journalist at the Osservatore Romano and "expert"
on mission, appointed by John XXIII in February 1962 to join the commission to
write the first draft of the document and then the text of the Missione Ad Gentes decree. In
Milan I was the editor of "The Catholic
Missions", but during the Council I lived almost exclusively at the PIME community
in Rome with quick overnight journeys by train I
commuted between Milan and Rome.
In a 1962 Easter Radio message John XXIII said: "The Council will be like a new Pentecost, from which the apostolic energies of the Church will once again gain strength throughout the extension of its mandate and its youthful vigor." We young people enthusiastically identified with this optimistic vision. What do I remember of those days? Looking back, it seems to me that the Catholic world was completely unprepared for the Council, that is, those radical changes, which the Spirit inspired and almost imposed on a Church that was closing in on itself. Among other things, it was thought that it would last two or three months, instead lasted four years.
At that time we, young priests, welcomed it with enthusiasm and the same Italian missionary movement lived a season of missionary fervor that is unimaginable today: in Italy there was a swarm of vocations and missionary initiatives, unity and cooperation between the missionary forces. In 1955, together we founded EMI (an Italian missionary publishing house) and a team of missionaries leaders in diocesan seminaries' the "Missionary Union of the Clergy", FESMI (Federation of missionary press, 1956), SUAM (Joint secretariat for missionary animation, 1957) and other bodies of collaboration between leaders and missionaries who teach in seminaries, the National Missionary Congresses (the first was held in Padua in 1958) and the "Week of missionary studies " with the Catholic University (1960). John XXIII spread optimism and often declared his love of the missions.
In the fifties,
three missionary encyclicals: two by Pius XII, "Evangelii praecones"
(1951) and "Fidei Donum" (1957), then the "Princeps
Pastorum" (1959) by John XXIII. In
the Italian Church breathed an atmosphere of
missionary fervor, in seminaries and in the young clergy willing to go on the
missions. In
preparation for the Second Vatican Council, the Committee on the missions had
begun its work October 24, 1960. I
joined them in February 1962 as one of the "experts", while Raimondo
Manzini invited me to become part of the Osservatore Romano editorial team during
the autumn months, charging me with the task of drawing up 2-3 pages each day
on the council with Msgr. Benvenuto Matteucci and Don Paolo Vicentin.
The
stressful demands of the Osservatore Romano and "The Catholic Missions" in Milan kept me from dedicating
the necessary time to the Committee on the missions. However,
I went to a few meetings, I had the prepared texts in my hands and interviewing
members of the bishops and experts allowed me to follow the discussion and maturation
of the missionary decree of the Council step by step.
My
fondest memories of the time all involve my meeting with the bishops whom I
interviewed for the Vatican
daily: I published the best interviews in "Vatican II and the Third World" (EMI 1966), translated into French
("Le Concile du Tiers Monde", Centurion). Interviewing
emerging bishops from the missions: Zungrana, Gracias, Rugambwa, Gantin, Malula,
Helder Camara, Lokuang, Zoa, Khoreiche, Mar Gregorios, Raymond, Cordeiro,
Nguyen Van Binh, Larrain, Nagae, Gopu, Yamaguchi, Busimba, etc..; In
addition, many missionary Italian or European Bishops and personalities of the
Council (Agagianian, Gilroy, Bea, Koenig, Lercaro).
To the reader of
today these names mean little but at that time were well-known personalities,
problems sometimes arose in publishing their interviews in the Osservatore:
some editing and two unpublished interviews, those with Card. Bea and Msgr. Helder Camara (which I
then added in the book). Those
interviews to the bishops of the council, long and carefully written, widely
picked up in the international press, brought the problems of the missions to
the fore.
Some
bishops invited me to visit their churches, to write in Italian newspapers,
opening up to universal horizons: Indonesia,
India, Vietnam, South
Africa, Angola,
Chile, Congo, etc.. The
Archbishop of Saigon, Nguyen Van Binh, said to me: "Many Italian and
European journalists are in Vietnam
for the war, but no-one interviews us Catholic bishops. Come to Vietnam to learn about our situation, we will
visit the country and bring the voice of the bishops and of Vietnamese
Catholics to Europe.
" Then, I received a letter of
invitation from the Vietnamese bishops' conference through Msgr. Sergio
Pignedoli, which marked the beginning of my adventures in Vietnam and Cambodia. I
wrote articles above all for "L'Italia" (later " Avvenire ") and an Italian journalist friend in Saigon
told me, "Your newspaper will publish this reality that we see ourselves.
But if I send it to my newspaper they won't publish them, some things cannot be
said in Italy.
"
One of the personalities that most impressed me during the Council was Msgr. Helder Camara of Recife (Brazil). I was one of the first journalists in the Italian press, I think, to write articles about him. He invited me and I went to visit him in the summer of 1966, he accompanied me around in his archdiocese, then we PIME invited him to come and speak in Italy and I translated (with Father Luigi Muratori) his first book, "The Third world defrauded "(EMI, 1968). They were the texts of his speeches which he gave me: they needed to be edited and finalized because they had been written in the form of spoken addresses. Camara did not want the book to be published: then he agreed, it was translated into 12 languages and launched in world public opinion. (End of Part One)
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