In December 1999, our local parish school, St. Thomas, celebrated its end-of-year Mass. As usual, a parent of one of the children in the final, Year Seven class was asked to speak after Mass, on behalf of all the Year Seven parents, to reflect on their children's year at the school and to thank the principal and teachers. Last year the parent was Catherine, who has been part of our small School of Community group since the beginning. The following is her address. "When we first decided to send our children to this school it was not because we had read any enticing brochures or because of a concerted advertising campaign by the school, or because of our impressions of the school grounds and the renovated classrooms. No, we chose St. Thomas' because another parent at the school, John, recommended the school to us. And in the seven years since we took up John's recommendation I have been struck by the importance of the parents' experience at a school in determining its success at recruitment. I noticed this again when another family arrived at the school from the Eastern States. When they had contacted a relocationist for a listing of schools that they could consider sending their children to, St. Thomas' didn't rate a mention. Yet this family came here because of a chance encounter with another parent who recommended it to them. I in turn have also passed on the good word about St. Thomas' to other prospective parents and I have felt very confident in doing so because of what we, as a family, have experienced here. And I do not think that our experience has been an isolated one. One parent said to me, 'Please, thank the principal for all that she has exposed the children to.' It is really only now, on the verge of leaving the St. Thomas' community, that I realize how appropriate it is, after all, to have a school named after St. Thomas, the doubting apostle, the one who would not believe until he had placed his hands in the wounds of Christ. It does not mean that this school is a bit tentative about its faith or about its commitment. What I have come to conclude is that St. Thomas was really the inquiring apostle, one who wanted to experience, in flesh and blood, the human, lived reality of faith. Thomas was overwhelmed when confronted with this reality and doubted no more. What he had been told and led to believe was Truth had been confirmed by his experience. Our children, here at St. Thomas', have been able to experience their Christian, Catholic faith as a lived reality, as a flesh and blood experience, and I hope too that as they continue their faith journey they will remember their experiences here and, like St. Thomas, doubt no more."

Dear Fr. Giussani: I am a political science student at the University of Florence who worked from September to December at the Holy See's Mission at the United Nations. Contrary to what everyone thinks, Vatican diplomacy is not a different way of conducting international affairs, but a special way of witnessing to Jesus Christ. The Papal Nuncio Msgr. Martino told me that, returning with the Pope from the UN, the Holy Father exclaimed, "Did you hear? I told them that what makes us move is Christ!" In effect, it is evident that the Vatican delegation is at the UN to serve this Presence and not to exercise its own power. The speeches made by the other delegations, especially those regarding moral principles, resounded with the violent will of the good, pure man who raises himself up as supreme judge. The Apostolic Nuncio's speeches, on the other hand, were addressed to man and not to mankind and had, as their starting point, man in flesh and blood. The aim is the defense of man's dignity, according to what the Pope once defined as the concern of Vatican diplomacy: "We try never to lose sight of the fact that the true stakes are man in the fullness of his calling." I, first of all, have personally experienced this gaze of mercy. I was not judged by my limits, my incapacities, my inadequacies, by what I knew or didn't know how to do, but was always treated according to the dignity of my being a person. The relationship with my friends, the work of School of Community, the friendship with Msgr. Albacete, reciting the Lauds, and following the gestures of the Movement, have made evident to me that what is involved is the benevolent destiny for which I was made.