A thought, a diary

After 13 years spent serving the Church and Europe as Secretary General of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE), on September 1st Msgr. Aldo Giordano was appointed permanent Observer of the Holy See at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, which represents Europe’s 47 Democratic States. In his greetings to the team of experts who worked with him in San Gallo (in Switzerland, seat of the CCEE) and other collaborators, Msgr.Giordano said: “In this moment, the experience I keep closer to heart is gratitude”. He then retraced the 13 years spent at the service of the Church and Europe. SIR Europe, represented by chief editor Paolo Bustaffa at the San Gallo meeting, retraced his story with him. Paths to be undertaken together. “I was taken by surprise when in May 1995 I was appointment CCEE Secretary general- Msgr. Giordano recalled- . I had been summoned from my Piedmont mountains and philosophy! On that occasion, in the St Mary of the Angels Basilica I had addressed to God the following prayer: ‘Oh Lord, I give you my poor hands so that you may use them to sow light and unity throughout our continent”. His mandate at CCEE led Msgr. Giordano to visit “almost all European Countries” in the past 13 years. “Since the day of my election, I started writing a diary – he told his collaborators – I now have 13 volumes of news and notes that I will review when I retire”. These trips led to the creation of “a network of friendships and European communion which I carry with me as an extraordinary gift”, he declared. The CCEE never proposed to be a small European curia, rather conceived itself a European space of relations where the existing realities of the single Countries or Bishops Conferences may come together, confront each other and find paths to be undertaken together”. Accompanied by a phrase. “A phrase of the Resurrected Christ accompanied me throughout these years: ‘I precede you in Galilee’, Msgr. Giordano recalled. Upon my departures, I cherished the belief that the Resurrected Christ had already preceded me in those places I was going to visit, while I was often comforted by the thought that the Crucified Christ was awaiting me in those places where I had been called to experience the suffering and tears of many in different situations of need”. When I was appointed CCEE Secretary in 1995, Europe was experiencing the fratricide war in the Balkans. Cardinal Pulijc from Sarajevo had come to the Assisi assembly with a military plane, passing through underground passages and amidst machine-gun fire. There had been no news of Bishop Komarica di Banja Luka for weeks and it was thought that he had been killed. I encountered the Crucifix in the divisions still existing between Christians, in the indifference for Christianity marking specific environments and in the fatigue experienced by many young Europeans in seeking the meaning of life”. Christianity: faces not masks. In bidding farewell to his assistants, Msgr. Giordano addressed a personal reflection regarding contemporary Europe. “In 1995, when I started my service at CCEE – he said – Europe was facing the consequences of the fall of the Wall, Eastern-Western Europe relations, and the Balkan tragedy. Today, the East-West division pattern has been greatly overcome, and Europe is viewed as a whole. The European Continent ought to undertake a more decisive confrontation with the major world challenges: the reality of other Continents, terrorism, the environment, hunger, the emergence of enormous nations like China”. In addition to a “space” decrease, Europe must also address a “time decrease” along with “ever-faster” changes dictated by scientific development at an “amazingly rapid” pace accompanied by ever-new problems. “When I first started in 1995 very few Bishops Conferences had a commission of bioethics experts discussing embryos, stem cells and cloning… This is now a priority for each Conference, since the matter at stake enters the realm of the human person and his future”. “The last major chapter I wish to recall is the re-emergence of the quest for God, the question of religious pluralism and the need to re-propose the true face of Christianity to Europe, since too many masks of it have been circulating in recent years”. “Also us journalists of SIR Europe have placed ourselves within this perspective – Paolo Bustaffa remarked – following the appeal of Msgr. Giordano and of Bishop Grab, CCEE President at the time, taking up the commitment of communicating the thought, project and life of the Catholic Church and of other Christian Churches present in Europe. This, in the year 2000, appeared to be a just “a dream”. Today, also thanks to the intelligence of Msgr. Giordano, it has become an authentic professional reality undergoing constant development”.