" "editorial" "
At a time of crisis for European democracies, both a moral and spiritual crisis, while many politicians are absorbed by their own business, it may seem out of place to ask whether there is any compatability between holiness and political commitment. Perhaps the question is paradoxical, or provocative, also because it is posed in the summer ‘recess’: it seems in fact that, at the present time, the road of conflict, of power, of profit is more crowded than that of the altars… But reality, also political reality, is always more complex and surprising than people imagine. It should not be forgotten in this regard that John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici (30 December 1988) called holiness the perfection of charity in ordinary familial, professional and also social and political life. On the basis of this affirmation, the beatification of individuals who worked with disinterest and farsightedness in and with the institutions for the common good, may become the occasion to give stimulus and significance of great depth to the action of the Christian, and not only of the Christian, in politics. For the new generations it would be the return of a message for too long enveloped in silence and of an unjustly undervalued educational proposal. Witnesses, as always, are more eloquent than words. In France, the processes have been opened for the beatification of Edmond Michelet, deported to Dachau, a great figure in the struggle against Nazism, later Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Justice, and also of Robert Schuman, one of the founders of European Union, who exercised politics like a priesthood. In Italy, similar processes have been opened for Alcide De Gasperi, he too one of the “Fathers” of Europe, of Giuseppe Lazzati, member of the Constituent Assembly in 1946-1947, and later rector of the Catholic University of Milan, and of Giorgio La Pira, “the saintly mayor of Florence”. Raising a politician to the honours of the altars may seem risky. Is there no risk of beatifying not only the chosen personality, but also the party he represented ? Is is a good thing for such processes to be opened when many protagonists of the period are still alive? Does not political action imply, even if it conceived and performed with competence and altruism, some choices that belong not to the field of charity but to that of calculation and expediency: how can the art of compromise be compatible with holiness, with its needs of the absolute and its foundation in the heroic virtues ? Challenging questions. However, the beatification of politicians would have the merit of demonstrating that even today it is possible to engage in political life by enhancing the lay values it represents. It would demonstrate that it is not only possible, but our duty to dedicate ourselves to the search for the common good, to defend and promote the culture of life and the rights of every man and every people. It would confirm that there does not exist a fundamental antagonism between the ethics of conviction and the ethics of responsibility. Lastly it would testify that the genius of Christianity in other words, the roots that John Paul II indefatigably recalls is indispensable to re-invent democracy for a Europe that wants to be for everyone. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if young Christians were to reflect on these questions too during their innumerable and fascinating summer experiences.
