An OR tribute to the late Giuseppe De Carli is misleadingly titled. Because although De Carli set a record by doing some 4,000 TV programs and video reports on John Paul II, the item that OR features here not only says very little about John Paul II but from being about the 'third secret' of Fatima, it ends up as a tribute to Benedict XVI.
Two Popes before Mary
by Giuseppe De Carli
Introduction to the Interview-book
'L'ultimo segreto di Fatima'
Translated from
the 7/15/10 issue of
In order to commemorate RAI's chief Vatican correspondent - who died Tuesday morning in Rome 0 we are publishing the Introduction to this last book, L'ultimo segreto di Fatima (Milano, Rai Eri - Rizzoli, 2010, pagine 266, euro 18,50) with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
There is no doubt that in Fatima, we have had the most spectacular apparitions of the Virgin Mary (also 'the most prophetic and political'): a place that has attracted three Popes - Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II three times; and now Benedict XVI.
Also, in 1956, Angelo Roncalli, later John XXIII, visited Fatima as the Patriarch of Venice. So did another Patriarch of Venice who became Pope, Albino Luciani, later John Paul I, who visited Suor Lucia in Coimbra in 1977; as did Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1996.
Yes, the message of Fatima strikes us with its language of blood and suffering, and has seemed to 'coagulate' around the figure of John Paul II.
It cannot be denied that the Wojtylian Pontificate was profoundly marked by Our Lady of Fatima. One gets shivers watching the images on October 2000 - that silent and lengthy act of veneration by John Paul II of the image from Cova da Iria in the Pope's private chapel.
The account of the circumstances that led to the publication of the third part of the Fatima 'secret' entrusted to Suor Lucia by 'Our Lady' is offered once more in this book by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and leads us to reflect anew on the greatness of John Paul II, of a Pope that the Church has decided to glorify.
Now, the pilgrimage of Pope Benedict XVI to Fatima comes almost like a seal on the first five years of his Pontificate.
There will always be discussion about the Fatima apparitions and the 'secrets' bound to it. But there are firm facts and credible testimonials. Perhaps we do not even need more than the clear words of Suor Lucia in her meetings with Cardinal Bertone.
We must remember that the process for Suor Lucia's canonization has begun. The Pope's special dispensation of the statutory post-mortem five years waiting period was made known in Coimbra on February 13, 2008, third anniversary of her death. This has happened in recent years to Mother Teresa of Calcutta and to John Paul II.
Nonetheless, for those who have been following the news accounts of a supposed 'unrevealed secret', one must recall that the 'Capovilla envelop' - that which some claim contains a different text - is the same envelop that Cardinal Bertone had in hand - namely, the third part of the 'secret of Fatima' - in 2000, when John Paul II ordered the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to publish the so-called Third Secret.
Mons. Loris Capovilla, who was private secretary to Pope John XXIII, has not ceased to contradict those who continue to claim that the Vatican has not revealed the entire text.
The various passages in the text contained in that envelop, the concordance among various sources (the 'Secretariat' of the Fatima Shepherds, the Vatican Secretariat of State, the archive of the CDF), the dates, the words said by Lucia [about the 'third secret], the context in which she said those words at different times, indicate that there are not two versions nor two distinct 'secrets'. Nor even, as some claim, an unrevealed part in addition to that which has been published, but a part left undisclosed for who knows what unconfessable motives.
This conviction about dark and devious plots can sometimes be more granitic than facts in their simple obviousness. That is why this new edition of the book includes precious testimony: that of Mons. Capovilla, previously published by Rizzoli in its book series on the 'Third Secret'.
There is also TV documentation of Capovilla's testimonial - that the text of Suor Lucia's sealed message on the third secret which was read by John XXIII in August 1959 is the identical text that was shown on TV on June 24, 2000, presented by then Mons. Bertone, with the theological commentary of Cardinal Ratzinger.
This book is a re-reading of the previous one,
L'ultima veggente di Fatima (from 2008), with some clarifications. Mainly lexical, the terms used. Nuances, one might say. But with such incandescent material - and its spiritual iridescence - even muances are significant.
This book is constructed in two distinct parts, which are in intimate dialog with each other. In the first, Suor Lucia's 'celestial grammar' prevails, during which she dwells on the vast and complex matter of the apparitions themselves.
According to Pope Benedict XVI, in his presentation of the earlier edition, which continues to be relevant, the events of Fatima "have marked the Church in the second half of the 20th century", and therefore, it is good that "they should be consigned to the collective memory as historical traces not devoid of significance".
The second part of this new book dwells on conversations with Cardinal Bertone, who has lived an unrepeatable experience through the message of Fatima. As chance or Providence would have it, he found himself involved in the aura of an event with luminous as well as dark features, and this second part of the book is rife with personal accents which reveal his temperament, his stature and his spirituality.
The cardinal has a genuine Marian devotion, inherited from his family and matured as a disciple of Don Bosco. Cardinal Bertone also makes us taste 'the fascination of the open sea' in his pastoral activity as well as in the acts of governance he now carries out as Secretary of State.
He deals with the great themes of reconciliation and peace, of inter-religious dialog, of the faith's 'right of citizenship' in a society that lives 'as if God does not exist'.
There are references both to his personal memories as well as those that have to do with the institutional roles he has carried out, both public and private memories, that shuttle from one Marian Pope to the other, from John Paul II to Benedict XVI.
Even though it is too early for an 'accounting' of Benedict XVI's Pontificate, we spoke about the present Pope to get a better overview in terms of identifying the basic themes of a Petrine ministry which is our
temporis stupor et miraculum - the wonder and miracle of our time - to use the expression that Ulrich of Strasbourg used for his master Albertus Magnus.
The corpus Ratzingerianum has taken the form of books, essays, encyclicals, pamphlets, homilies, catecheses, exhortations, appeals - which reveal true wisdom and an intellect open to faith.
Benedict XVI has shown that the problem is not the ecclesial 'machinery' but the fuel for it; not the building itself, but its foundations. The crisis that exists has to do with the truth of the Gospel, not with the institution.
The seduction worked by Benedict XVI is that of recovering for the faith its character as a 'counter-culture'. That explains the growing attention from a new public, that of the Facebook generation, towards a Pope who can adapt his intellectual fit to that of a pastor who can teach.
What's more, the theologian-Pope, against all predictions, also travels. In five years [as of May 2010), he had made 30 visits between pastoral trips in Italy and apostolic visits abroad. Even if he is only one-third through the length of Paul VI's papacy so far, he has already travelled far more than his predecessor did.
And to be more specific, Benedict XVI has always been in 'the radius of Mary'. In Cologne, In Poland, in Altoetting, in Aparecida, in Lordes, in Valencia, in Bethlehem and Nazareth, in Ephesus in Turkey, and even in the United States, in Cameroon and Angola, in prague adn Brno, in Malta, in Fatima, and later, in Cyprus, the United Kingdom and Spain.
His visits in Italy have taken him to Bari, Manoppello, Assisi, Naples, Brescia, Genoa and Savona, Vigevano and Pavia, Leuca and Brindisi, Loreto, Cagliari, Pompeii, Montecassino, Turin. He even went to San Giovanni Rotondo to venerate the remains of San Pio da Pietrelcina. He has visited soup kitchens in Rome, the Sant'Egidio community's Christmas lunch for the poor, and the CAritas hostel in Rome's Stazione Termini. And Rome's Synagogue.
'Let this Simon also called Peter come!' say the Acts of the Apostles. And Peter came.
So, Benedict XVI shows up where he is called, despite controversies, despite radical socio-political contexts. Yet he comes. And apeaks to his audiences of life unto death, of Christian identity in the midst of alienation and estrangement, of hope and the future in the face of the dark portents of modernity.
These are the pilgrimages - often Marian - of 'an intellectual with heart'. Who better than Cardinal Bertone can offer a key to read the Pontificate of Benedict XVI?
The cardinal's view is that of someone who daily sees up close a Pope that the world is learning to love. To catch this viewpoint, if only in these interviews, is 'good news' both for current events and for history.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/07/2010 13:24]