I don't know why I even took the time to translate this interview, which I wanted to post with the least possible commentary because the entire interview in itself with the late Cardinal Martini's longtime private secretary is its own best commentary. I must say that I am struck by all the pious expressions found here that are not at all consistent with the relentless negativity of the last interview with the Cardinal...Though I'd like to think that in his final moments of life, he would have repented for what I continue to see as an openly and totally uncharitable act towards the Church, the Popes and the faithful who try their best to live as Christians should.
Milan archdiocese establishes
a Cardinal Martini Prize to
encourage Biblical studies,
lectio divina and reflections
relating the Gospel to the world today
Translated from the Italian service of
October 1, 2012
Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan, asked all the communities in the diocese today to celebrate a Mass of suffrage for Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini on the 30th day after his death.
He also announced that he has instituted the Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini Prize to encourage the study of Biblical disciplines, a deeper involvement in lectio divina, and reflection on the relation between the Gospel and the world today. Details about the Prize will be announced on February 11, birthday of the late cardinal.
To mark today's anniversary, Antonella Palermo interviewed Fr. Damaso Modena, who had been the late cardinal's private secretary for a long time.
FR. MODENA: More than just remembering him, I wish to express my thanks to the cardinal. The most difficult part of human relationships is to enter into the sufferings of another person, which is certainly the most intimate part of us. It's not easy to enter from outside, because the other always tends to protect himself, and because not everyone is capable to share suffering without devastating the victim in some way.
The cardinal allowed me and his caregivers to enter this most intimate part of his life - his suffering, his ailment. We did not enter his private rooms, but for the most part, he allowed us to come close enough to help him live through the experience better, to accompany him in his solitude, his physical pain, his disappointments, and especially, his inability to communicate in the final stages of his illness. I think this was for him his deepest suffering. He always said that physical pain was not that bad, remarking that "It is an illness that hinders me much more than it causes pain". The impossibility of communicating hurt him at the heart of his being, as someone who always was a great communicator.
Has everything been said about the final moments of his life?
Much of it is false... or even all of it. He died a natural death, and he was assisted and accompanied in everything to the end. It had been clear that one could intervene up to a certain point, after which all that remains is to be with the patient. When it is clear that nothing else can be done, then nothing else can be done. We accompanied him with affection, with prayer, reading from the Bible, even singing hymns around his dead, holding his hands.
Do you think that Cardinal Martini was instrumentalized by the media?
I cannot judge that because since he died I have read almost nothing. You can imagine, nothing interested me at that point. It was like losing my father, and I suffered the pain of his absence, so I was not interested in what was being written... But I think, yes...
What are your best memories of the life that you were able to share with him?
His very elevated sense of justice for all - the poor, the sick, the suffering people whom he encountered. He would have wanted to help everyone, know them all, liberate them all from injustice. And his acceptance of everyone. I never heard him once express any negative judgment about anyone. Never!
[Only about the Church and the men he thinks are not running the Church well!]
What did you learn from him about life and death?
Perhaps it is still to early for me to understand, to give the proper weight to the things I learned from him. About living,
never to judge anything, leave it to God to judge and to love us.
About dying, I must say that I thought dying would be easier. But I saw that it is complicated. I understood that one must be able to conquer even death, in a certain sense. I saw the effort that it took, that death does not always come instantly. It is a journey, a course during which one must let oneself go. But that is not always easy to do because, the cardinal often said, death is perhaps the only act of faith that a nan can make in life, as it is the only act in which you can absolutely no longer count on yourself. I think it cost him much to yield, to allow death to take over, because he loved life too much.
Four months ago, in June, there was a meeting between Benedict XVI and Cardinal Martini in Milan. It is said that it was the cardinal who wanted the meeting in order to demonstrate his solidarity during a difficult moment for the Pope and for the Church...
I remember it well. I thought it was a meeting between two men who had suffered much. One did not know that he would die within two months, and the other probably did not imagine that once he became Pope, he would have so many crosses to bear.
[It comes with being Vicar of Christ, and surely every Pope knows to expect it! And perhaps those who think of Benedict XVI as 'suffering' are projecting themselves. Not by word, gesture or the way he looks has Benedict XVI ever shown he is 'suffering'. And whatever he 'suffers' in private, I am sure he has learned over the decades to live with it and offer it joyfully as his share of the Cross that Christ has to bear.]
It was a meeting in which the looks and the few words they exchanged seemed intended to comfort each other, especially the cardinal for the Pope.
We found the Pope very tired and suffering, and the cardinal did all he can, as far as it was possible for him, to tell him he was close to him, that it was a time of testing, and that he should not be too concerned.
[We're talking here about Vatileaks, with Gabriele having been arrested just a few days earlier. Let us not go overboard! Whatever the Pope may have felt about his valet's betrayal, I am sure his concern was never for himself - that would be selfish - but for the consequences to the Church of the entire Vatileaks mess. At the same time, he must have kept a sense of proportion - that this was a minor 'tragedy' compared to the genuine tragedy of pedophile priests and their abuse of children, or the progressivist dissent in the Church.]
What would you consider Cardinal Martini's spiritual legacy?
It is immense. I believe above all it is mercy. That we must be announcers of mercy. Jesus was always on the side of sinners, in all the passages of the Gospel. From beginning to end. From his birth to his death.
And so, I think that the cardinal's legacy is this: That an authentic Church is one which takes the side of sinners and comforts them - even if that is all that can be done.
[But you just don't comfort a sinner - first, you make him realize and acknowledge that he has sinned and will amend his life accordingly, in which the act of contrition itself becomes the greatest comfort, even before absolution at confession!]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/10/2012 07:10]