EUROPE/ITALY - “The Church, a life which encounters other lives”: presentation of a new book by Mons. Luigi Giussani “Perché la Chiesa”.

Thursday, 6 May 2004

Rome (Fides) - “Perché la Chiesa” (Why the Church) is the title of book by Mons. Luigi Giussani which was presented to the public on 5 May at the Sala della Maternità in Rome. The event was organised by the Catholic church movement Communion and Liberation, with the publisher RCS LIBRI, to mark the 50th anniversary of the movement founded in Milan 1954 and today present in 70 different countries. Speakers addressing an audience of more than 1,000, included Card. Dario Castrillòn Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy and professor Giancarlo Cesana, a member of the CL Italian national council. Among those present Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, Archbishop Paolo Romeo (Papal Nuncio to Italy), Bishop Velasio de Paolis (Secretary of the Supreme Tribunal Apostolic Segnature), Bishop Gianni Danzi (Secretary of the Vatican City Governatorate), Hon. Grazia Sestini (Italy’s under secretary for social and labour policies) Hon. Uggè (Italy’s under secretary for infrastuctures and transport).
The volume concludes a triology “PerCorso” written by the Founder of Communion and Liberation which includes Il senso religioso (A Sense of Religion) and All’origine della pretesa cristiana (At the root of the Christian claim). In it Giussani proposes to the freedom and reason of the reader the fundamental factors and criteria for a verification of the reality of the Church, historical phenomenon whose significance consists in being the possibility for man to reach certainty about Christ today. In a Letter to don Giussani for this 50th anniversary of CL (Osservatore Romano, 21 April 2004), the Pope wrote: «This is precisely the pedagogic intuition of your Movement: that is propose, in a fascinating way and in harmony with present day culture, the Christian event, understood as a source of new values, able to direct our whole life. It is necessary and urgent to help people encounter Christ, so he may become for men and women of today the ultimate reason for living and working». «This is the exact opposite to what was affirmed three centuries ago by Jean Jacques Rousseau» said Giancarlo Cesana, «where philosophy said: there are too many people between me and God».
The presentation of Perchè la Chiesa helped to make known the thought and experience which bore Communion and Liberation of which don Giussani, writing to the Pope on the anniversary of the birth of CL, said: «I think that the inspiration of the movement which I saw come to life was that it felt the urgency of proclaiming the need to return to the elementary aspects of Christianity, that is to say passion for the Christian fact as such in its original elements, an that only ....This is why we do not feel that we are bearers of a particular spirituality, nor do we feel the need to identify it. Dominant in us is gratitude for the discovery that the Church is life which comes to meet our life: it is not a discourse about it».
Tomorrow Fides will publish an interview on Mons. Giussani’s volume with Cardinal Castrillòn Hoyos. (P.L.R.) (Agenzia Fides 6/5/2004; Righe 32 - Parole 456)


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