OR, Avvenire, Vatican Radio and the Italian newspapers gave ample coverage today to Georg Gaenswein's academic honor yesterday in Perugia and the address he gave, of which both Avvenire and OR have published excerpts, as well as his answers to newsmen's questions afterwards..
Mons. Gaenswein:
'Healthy secularity'
reinforces Italian identity
15 FEB 2011 (RV) - Perugia’s University for Foreigners has bestowed an honorary degree in communications systems in international relations on Msgr. Georg Gaenswein, Pope Benedict XVI’s personal secretary.
During the ceremony Tuesday morning, Msgr. Gaenswein gave a
lectio magistralis on "Church-State relations in Italy. Libertas Ecclesiae in the Concordat”, in which he underlined that the Church and the State, although for different reasons, are at the "service of the human person and the common good".
Retracing Church-State relations in Italy from the Lateran Concordat of 1929 to the Villa Madama Agreement that revised it in 1984, the papal secretary noted how the 1984 Agreement affirmed "a new conception of sovereignty, one that is no longer closed but open to serving humanity and the common good", for which "a healthy partnership” is necessary, “even in the diversity of their respective responsibilities".
Msgr Gaenswein recalled the vision of relations between Church and State in Italy proposed by Benedict XVI during his visit to the Quirinal Palace in 2005.
"The autonomy of the temporal sphere," he said, echoing the Pope words, "does not preclude close harmony with the superior and complex requirements arising from an integral vision of man and his eternal destiny."
The Concordat of 1929 and the 1984 agreements, he added, "provide a legal framework for the realisation of a healthy secularism" of which the Pope speaks, and one which "strengthens the identity of Italy."
Msgr Gaenswein devoted a significant portion of his address to the City of Rome, expressing his hopes for the approval of a series of norms that will allow it to best fulfil its role as capital, international city and the seat of Catholicism.
In particular, Mgr. Gaenswein noted that Rome could be fitted with special laws attentive to areas such as international relations, welcoming pilgrims and health and social services for immigrants.
Two recent events, he added, reinforce this view: the Great Jubilee of 2000 and the funeral of Pope John Paul II, which saw a multitude of people flowing into Rome and led authorities to reassess services in many urban areas.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/02/2011 20:40]