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Igino Giordani: a politician and a saint?
A true representative of twentieth century culture, what he left to us is extremely up to date
14/09/2009
The ceremony held at the International Centre of the Focolare Movement
3:30 (GMT) – LIVE INTERNET CONNECTION http://live.focolare.org/
 “May the whole Church find in him a model, a witness of the Gospel, a faithful layman and a model of communion”. That was how, in a letter to Chiara Lubich on 8 December 2000, the then Bishop of Tivoli, Pietro Garlato, announced his decision to begin the beatification process of Igino Giordani. On 27 September the diocesan phase of the process will be concluded and it will be passed on to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican.
Can a politician be a saint?
That was what Igino Giordani asked himself when in 1946, following his long experience of working with Don Sturzo in the Partito Popolare, Alcide De Gasperi persuaded him to stand for election. His desire for sanctity had come at the age of 22, while he lay wounded in a military hospital, a casualty of the First World War.
As a politician he was “chaste”, enjoying no privileges, and in the difficult post war years carried out his role as a parliamentary and constitutional father as a “social service, charity in action.” A strenuous defender of peace, he considered war to be “an act against the people, an insult to freedom, to democracy.” Previously, through his determined opposition to fascism, he had lived in “civil and political exile”. He had been struck off the register of journalists and banned from teaching.
“Either Europe unites, or it will perish”, he wrote in the fifties, when he was a member of the first Council of Peoples of Europe. He had foreseen the birth of a United Europe ever since the twenties.
He was the director of several influential journals. He resigned from “Il Popolo” so as not to be a “director being directed”. A few years later he directed “Il Quotidiano”, and by threatening to resign he put an end to any attempts at external editorial control. As a journalist and writer, he left a cultural patrimony of about a hundred books and more than 4000 articles covering politics, culture and religion.
A leading intellectual of the Italian Catholic world, an expert on the Fathers of the Church, he promoted a heroic Christianity and through his work on the laity and on ecumenism, was in some ways a forerunner of the Second Vatican Council.
He had a decisive encounter in 1948 with Chiara Lubich, who in 1943 had given life to Focolare, a new movement in the Church. This caused a “revolution in his soul.” He found what he had been searching for, and the gates that “separated the lay world from the mystical life” were thrown open. He had been journeying alone, now he travelled as part of a community. In return, he was able to give an important contribution to the development of the Focolare charism of unity in the ecumenical field, and in the renewal of the world of the family, of politics, and various parts of society. His contribution was such that Chiara considered him to be one of the cofounders of the movement. His writings and his life are a prophetic witness of the “caritas in veritate” set out by Pope Benedict XVI in his latest encyclical.
After five years work, the diocesan stage of his beatification process has ended. There are 2,500 pages of evidence. The theological censors have examined 98 books and 4,000 articles, while historical experts have looked at 120 folders of unpublished writing, comprising some 60,000 pages. There are more than 50 cases of graces received through Giordani’s intercession. One of these will be selected by the postulator, and presented for verification by the Church as a miracle.
The opening of the cause was on 6 June 2004, in the Cathedral at Frascati, the diocese where Igino Giordani died. It was presided over by the bishop at the time, Mons Giuseppe Matarrese.
The concluding ceremony will take place at the International Centre of the Focolare Movement at Rocca di Papa, where his remains and those of Chiara Lubich are preserved. The new bishop, who has just been installed in the diocese of Frascati, Mons Raffaello Martinelli will preside at the juridical act at 16:30. It will be preceded by an address given by the president of the Focolare Movement, Maria Voce.
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