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From Avvenire by Giorgio BernardelliDec. 11, 2010
Canonization of Guido M. Conforti: From Italy to the whole world, by Giorgio Bernardelli - In this photo, Bishop Conforti visits Berceto
When the Church canonizes the founder of a religious order there is always the
risk of taking this gesture for granted: his religious have done wonderful
things and, therefore, it is only right that he should be thus honored. If this
criterion is never the one that guides the Congregation for the Causes of the
Saints in its decisions, it would be doubly wrong to apply it to the figure of
Blessed Guido Maria Conforti, the founder of the Xaverian Missionaries.
On Dec. 10 2010, the Pope signed the decree on the miracle that
opened the way to his Canonization, which will take place in the coming months.
This religious family has done, and continues to do, extraordinary work in the
four corners of the earth: from Indonesia to Brazil, from the Democratic
Republic of Congo to Mexico, the Xaverian Missionaries and the Missionaries of
Mary continue to give their life for the Gospel, in the midst of peoples that
are often forgotten by all.
The extent to which they reflect the most authentic face of Italy is well known
to the thousands of people who listen willingly to their testimony when they
return home, who support their development projects, take part in their
animation programs and who allow themselves to be challenged by their magazines
and cultural proposals. If we were to stop here, it would still be too little
because holiness is always something that is called to shake us, rather than
reassure us.
The real challenge is to measure ourselves with the figure of archbishop Guido
Maria Conforti, by truly accepting that the miracle obtained through his
intercession is a sign of the times which challenges the Church in Italy today.
Reading the life of the Xaverians’ founder is a great provocation for our own
times, which speaks much of globalization, but which struggles to live
universality. In the Italy of the end of the 19th century, Conforti was dreaming
of leaving to proclaim the Gospel at the very ends of the earth, but poor health
prevented him from doing so.
That ideal, however, was too great to abandon and, in 1895, he founded a
Congregation to which he gave the name of a great missionary, St. Francis
Xavier. The Italy of those years also needed witnesses to the Gospel and that
priest, who had a far-reaching vision and yet was not in any way indifferent to
what was happening around him, did not go unobserved. He was appointed
archbishop first at Ravenna and then at Parma, where he governed the diocese for
twenty-five years. In 1916, while Europe was still in the grips of a tragic war,
he called upon Pope Benedict XV, upon the conclusion of the conflict, to
re-launch the missionary invitation to “go out into the whole world...”
In 1919, the Pope wrote the Apostolic Letter Maximum illud, a milestone in the
history of the mission. Wholly rooted in Italy, but with a heart truly capable
of embracing the entire world: this is the lesson and the message that Guido
Maria Conforti can offer to us today, reminding us that the mission ad gentes is
not an outdated task for today’s Christians.
While it may be true that “there is so much to do here,” to give our own sons
and daughters as witnesses of the Gospel in distant countries is certainly not a
luxury for the Italian Church. Looking at our parishes in terms of vocations,
the impression often is that we run the risk of becoming used to receiving
rather than giving. Perhaps this is the lesson we might learn through the gift
of this new saint.
