“Laymen need the monastery, and the monastery needs laymen, or indeed laicism. The monastery can improve judgement just by offering a deep bond between the space of spirit and that of history”. This was said by Alberto Monticone, university lecturer and former MP and national president of the Italian Catholic Action, as he spoke this morning at the V national meeting of the Italian Monastic Conference (Cim), which will end today at the Abbey of Santa Scolastica (Subiaco) in preparation to the IV national church meeting due in Verona from October 16th to 20th, about "Christ Resurrected, hope of the world". Monticone recalled "how the catholic movement has grown stronger and has overcome the recurring crises when he fed his laicism by dialoguing with the religious world”. “Too often he added ideals of priesthood and service are promoted within the Church, leaving aside those of friendship, which are essential for bringing together the plurality of vocations”. However, Monticone thinks that "friendship demands endless mutual resolve and, since laymen and religious men do not live alone, this is accomplished in communal mutuality”. This is a friendship, which "reappraises charismas and strengthens spiritual solidarity". “May monks he ended be breeding grounds of edification for the Christian people. Our age drives us to be imaginative and to invent plans" to give substance to this friendship.
