«Thanks to my work as a diplomat, with my family we learned to recognize the treasures of an extended humanity, to love the country of the other as our own, to love God in the person whose nationality and culture is different from ours. Mnay ask me if it is possible to live as a Christian in an environment that brings you into contact with the riches, but also with the sufferings of the most varied humanity. This is my daily challenge. In my work I try to draw inspiration from the ideal of fraternity proposed by  Chiara Lubich. There is a writing on diplomacy, which I use as a sort of guide. It says among other things: “Make yourself one with the other, in that complete forgetting of onself that possesses – without noticing it and without looking after it – him who calls to mind the other, the neighbour. This is the diplomacy of charity (…). The divine diplomacy (…) is moved by the good of the other and is therefore without any shadow of egoism”. And still more: “If every diplomat in fulfilling his function is guided in all his actions by charity towards the other State as if it were his own country, he will be enlightened by the help of God up to the point of contributing towards the realization of relationships among States just as the relationships among persons shoud be”. I feel that this affrimation is very true and concrete and I was able to experience this on many occasions. For example, while I was watching the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics and the Paraolympics, I thought of sending my corresponding colleague a message through my mobile phone: “Your Country is showing us all its beauty”, I wrote. And he immediately replied: “Thank you”. With that simple gesture I was able to express my appreciation for his country. Sometimes work is transformed into a real battle. I remember when it was my Country’s turn to hold the presidency of the European Union, I was given the task of presiding one of the working groups wherein the adoption of “European Diplomatic Programme” was proposed.  This meant a program of professional formation offered to young diplomatic officers working in the national diplomatic corps of member Countries. It was strongly supported by some countries and greatly contested by others. The program provides for the inclusion of a language to the detriment of other national languages, which, at that point, should have also been taekn into consideration. In such a situation it was up to me to find a solution. I talked to the representatives of each Country, listening fully to the reasons of each one: as president, I wanted to be at the service of everyone. But I went ahead, trying to convince them that it would be more advantageous for everyone to have a common formation program, and that it would be useful to go ahead with two official languages that would not create any difficulties in the realization of the program. I made my proposal which was approved by all and the European Diplomatic Program is today an established and well-known reality. I carry out my mission in a country that is torn apart. divided, with considerable problems from all points of view.  I struggle, in these times, to love the persons concretely, to live the divisions and not to escape from them, to love the men and women without God and to bear witness to Him, there where he does not exist, to be, through my life, a bridge that unites. You don’t necessarily have to be an ambassador to become a “bridge”. When we love the other we can do everything; Saint Augustine reminds us this  and the witness of Chiara Lubich and of all of us who want to live her same ideal of unity in the world, are the most tangible proof». Source: New Humanity online