Some extracts from a talk by Nedo Pozzi on the figure of “Giordani communicator”, given on 18 April, the 29th anniversary of the death of “Foco”, during the recent congress of NetOne Italia.

Igino Giordani, known as Foco by Chiara and all of us, left this earthly life twenty nine years ago. Giordani was an important twentieth century Italian figure. Just when he was busiest and most well known, an event occurred that changed his life and drew him into a new and totally absorbing spiritual experience

It was his meeting in September 1948 with Chiara Lubich. With her, he established a spiritual bond of unity of exceptional humility and transparency. “All my studies, my ideals, the events of my life seemed to have been pointing towards this… Previously I had searched, and now I had found.”

And from that meeting between Chiara and Giordani in 1948, a radical renewal of life, thought, and social interaction began to flourish in all fields, including politics and the media…

Giordani was a man of multiple talents, but today we will consider him as a communicator at the service of a great ideal: humanity as a family.

His contribution to the media world was impressive. He wrote 4000 articles for 49 different publications, in Italy and abroad, founded various journals, directed two daily papers and ten periodicals, and wrote more than 100 books (almost two per year), which, not including essays, pamphlets, letters and talks amount to 26000 pages, many of them translated into various languages. For thirty years he was active in the cultural and political scene, nationally and internationally, giving prophetic insights into many of the dramas of the twentieth century. He was a gifted writer, but his most effective contribution to the media was with words. He had a talent for beautiful and eloquent conversation that, with subtle irony, conveyed counter cultural ideas of unusual depth.

He was a real artist with words, and a politician who was “naive” and “too Christian”. Here he writes about communication.

“If to be is to think, to live is to communicate”

“The communicator is called to illuminate, not to obscure. ….He ought to renew himself each day, replenish himself with ideas in every moment. …The communicator may have no money in his pocket, but with an idea in his head, and a flame burning in his heart, he is worth more on the market than a financier.”

“Love is everything, without love everything is nothing. Communication can and must nourish this truth, the only lasting cohesive force in society, before fear, the mother of the atomic bomb, gains the upper hand.”

“The communicator is the most direct builder of a new city.”

“Humanity always brings ruin on itself for the same reasons… It says for example, “If you want peace, prepare for war”. For us the truth is different. If you want peace prepare for peace. If you prepare for war, then sooner or later the rifles will shoot by themselves… If we want to achieve peace, we have to begin by building it among us… for peace truly begins from each one of us.”  This is what he said in Parliament on 21 December 1950.

And finally, what would Giordani say if we were to ask him what to do?

“Open up your heart like a shell in order to hear the voice of humanity. Enable love and wealth – the good and the goods – to circulate, breaking down the barricades of race and class, the customs posts of the spirit, the road tolls of happiness… See in every person, whoever it is, a brother or sister…”

He issued this challenge in 1961, but it is extremely relevant today. I have to respond to it each morning, each time I meet someone or I sit at my computer to do my (and his) work.

Nedo Pozzi