Giussani Our Voice Sings with a Why The following is the text of the interview with Fr Giussani for the documentary on the fiftieth anniversary of CL transmitted by Rai Uno (the main Italian public service television channel) on September 10th. “I have always striven to live life fully–in its concrete personal demands and in its applicability–as an response to real needs…on one hand as a challenge, and on the other as sure perception that all that is positive in nature will find an answer” edited by Roberto Fontolan After fifty years, Communion and Liberation is present in seventy countries. Schools and businesses, charitable initiatives, editors of books and CDs, cultural centers, the Rimini Meeting and many thousands of people all have the Movement as their point of reference. How do you explain this recognition, something you have never sought? I have always striven to live life fully–in its concrete personal demands and in its applicability–as a response to real needs. Listening to a symphony conducted by Muti or Von Karajan can provide exceptional enjoyment, it can stimulate an extraordinary feeling, or represent a Mystery that reveals itself, just as unknown beauties appear on the horizon of the heart. It is like a prize awarded to the heart of man, to our heart as men in the midst of confusion and uncertainty, seeking something that is lacking. Eliot himself had something to say with a certain self-confidence when he asked himself, “Has the Church failed mankind, or has mankind failed the Church?” How can a man of my times, a man of these times, when speaking of culture or using the word, not bear in mind this phrase? You can forget four-fifths of the world. Is it a criticism of the Church or of mankind? Both, both, because first and foremost it is mankind that failed the Church, because if I need something, I chase after it, if that thing goes away. No one chased after it. And when did the Church fail mankind? The Church began to fail mankind, as I see it, as we see it, because she forgot who Christ was, she did not rely on…, she was ashamed of Christ, of saying who Christ is. The concept of purity or of virginity held by the monks of the 13th century, St Bernard amongst them, is a song of beauty, a song in which beauty conquers all. Monsignor Giussani, many people stress the Movement’s ability to meet and bring in people of all sorts, social class and culture. To what do you ascribe this ability? It is the result of a coherent and insistent interest in human relationships, which played and could be played between young people then and now, of a new and more attentive attention paid to the foreign or strange, which becomes an integral part of the great game of existence. The event of human history forms part of God’s design and as a result is forever valid; that is, it is consecrated with the visionary nature of God’s wisdom, and this starts to define a line of communication–of the Catholic sacrament–that is useful and fruitful as a starting point as for a new Advent. It is also owing to the fact that the persons met were tackling and living episodes of material needs. To conclude, in one of your most famous appearances–at the Meeting in Rimini in 1985–you said, “I hope you and I will never be still.” Why? What did you intend by this? That man is worthy of living because he accepts life only as a striving for a fulfilled response and conquest that God the Creator has planned and built for him. After an hour of a lesson at school, a girl gave me this song she had written, presenting it as a great discovery: Poor voice… our voice sings with a why. I know of no other more definitive expression than this, as a challenge on the one hand, and as a sure perception on the other that all that is positive in nature will find its response. Who Is He?... Luigi Giussani was born in 1922, in Desio, Italy, a small town near Milan. As a young boy, he entered the Milan diocesan seminary, where he went on to complete his studies in the Venegono Theological Faculty. These were years of intense study and great discoveries. Ordained a priest, Fr Giussani dedicated himself to teaching in the same seminary. At the end of the fifties, he left his post in the seminary to take up teaching in public high school. For ten years, from 1954 to1964, he taught at the Berchet Classical High School in Milan. These were the years during which GS (Gioventù Studentesca–Student Youth) was born. From 1964 to 1990, he taught “Introduction to Theology” at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. He is founder and President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation and of the Memores Domini ecclesial association. Since 1993, he has directed the series, “Books of the Christian Spirit,” for one of the most important Italian publishing houses, Rizzoli RCS. Since 1997, he has directed the series of CD music, “Spirto Gentil,” which has been very successful. In 1995, he was awarded the International Prize for Catholic Culture. He is the author of many books, now translated into various languages. Hundreds of thousands of people, old and young, have been formed using these texts.