De Gasperi, Schuman, Adenauer” “” “

The European single currency, the Euro, came into force on 1st January 2002. A monetary union that, the hope is, will prelude the political union for which many European statesmen have worked ever since the end of the second world war. One of them was Alcide De Gasperi whom SirEurope has chosen to commemorate in its first editorial of 2002, signed by his daughter, Maria Romana, vice president of the De Gasperi Foundation. It’s a shame that with the passing of the years so little should be remembered of a person who occupied an important place in the history of our nation and in the past of our people and that so few facts about him should remain in the collective memory. And perhaps even that is an over-optimistic assessment; for if one happens to ask a student who was De Gasperi one is liable to receive the most fantastic replies. So, in a few lines I will try to sketch a portrait of a man which may be enough to arouse in some curiosity about him and a wish to know more about his life and work. First of all, as a young friend of mine wrote years ago, “he knew how to stop”. He said that in the evening it was necessary to close shop and let one’s thoughts and problems rest overnight. So, that man who day after day had to tackle and try to resolve the most urgent problems of the day, such as the need for bread rationing, or for the reconstruction of the roads and bridges destroyed in the war, and not least the urgent need to rebuild Italy’s credibility and her will to establish and maintain democratic governments, knew in the evening, on returning home to his family, to ask us how our exams had gone, or what dress our mother had bought. It seemed that we and our friends were his only thoughts on days of holiday. He made us feel useful and necessary for his life. He knew how to dedicate the same attention to our petty problems as he did to the problems of government in his cabinet meetings, when, in a few words, he reduced to the essential a provision or a task that before his intervention had seemed altogether too daunting or impossible to resolve. He was above all a statesman. Anyone who considers with passion the history of those years will realise that De Gasperi, though he was the founder and supporter to the end of his life of a great political party, belonged more deeply to the history of his country than to that of a party. A serious and convinced Catholic, he found himself the heir to those principles of liberty that were to inspire the rebirth of that same Italian State so bitterly contested by Catholics in the early Risorgimento. He respected freedom of conscience. He was able to balance different interests and give new scope to those who, while remaining faithful to the principles of their own faith, were able to give life to a political force which also had the task of preserving the freedom of those who did not share their same values. Thanks to this liberality, he was able to have within his own governments men of different backgrounds and culture, but of great stature: I think of the Liberals, of the Socialdemocrats, of the Republicans, who had great respect for De Gasperi, offering him not only their constructive partnership but also their sincere affection. His spiritual life and his religious conduct never presented an obstacle to this partnership, nor did they diminish his civil passion for public affairs. Our father taught us above all to look to others, to understand and forgive, to seek the person below the trappings of the adversary, and to consider nature and life as an immense gift. The common good was the goal of his political and human life. The same common good impelled him to take the first steps towards the goal of the European union. That was also his last battle and it is still in the footsteps of three great Europeans that we will have to progress if the union of our peoples is to become a serious reality. I have always asked myself why the Church failed to profit from so unusual a fact: De Gasperi, Schuman, Adenauer, three true Christians went hand in hand in their support for the most enlightened project of past centuries. We cannot honestly say they were helped in this process.