An Air of Appointments in the Curia – With a Gust of New Culture
With a pope-professor like Benedict XVI, the right time has come in the Vatican for men of study in harmony with him.
To each his promotion. To monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, a luminary of the Sacred Scriptures, the presidency of the pontifical council for culture.
To professor Giovanni Maria Vian, a philologist of ancient Christian literature, the direction of “L’Osservatore Romano.“
To the Salesian Raffaele Farina, another scholar of the earliest Christian authors, the post of archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church.
To monsignor Cesare Pasini, vice-prefect of the Ambrosian Library and an aficionado of Greek and Latin manuscripts, the prefecture of the Apostolic Vatican Library.
To the American Benedictine Michael John Zielinski, who grew up among codices and incunabula, the presidency of the pontifical commissions for the cultural heritage of the Church and for sacred archaeology.
To the Anglo-German Oratorian Uwe Michael Lang, a disciple of the great humanist and theologian John Henry Newman and the author of an essay on liturgical architecture with a preface by Joseph Ratzinger, art and sacred music.
Farina and Pasini’s roles have already been assigned, last June 25. For the others, the official appointments are on the way. The most important of all is that of Ravasi (in the photo). Benedict XVI did not simply give his approval to this. He personally willed it, overcoming resistance from opponents and rivals.
Because for years Ravasi has been a candidate for everything; he was even in the running for archbishop of Milan, his diocese, but until now he has always been stuck at the gate.
In 2005 it seemed done; the bishopric of Assisi was ready for him, the city of Saint Francis: a small diocese, but of great importance worldwide.
But when, on June 25, the Vatican congregation that attends to the nomination of the new bishops gathered its members for the final examination, on the table appeared the clippings of an article Ravasi published on March 31, 2002 in the Sunday supplement of the economics and finance newspaper “Il Sole 24 Ore.” The article was about Easter, and the headline read: “He was not raised; he arose.” Brows were furrowed; some said this was an attack on correct doctrine. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the congregation, withdrew his candidacy.
Ravasi is among the most popular of churchmen. For seventeen years he has been a star on Canale 5, the flagship of Silvio Berlusconi’s television stations. But he has never made even the briefest appearance on any frivolous entertainment show. He has just one hit broadcast “Le frontiere dello spirito [The frontiers of the spirit],” which is aired on Sundays mornings with the contractual agreement that advertisements will never interrupt his interpretive readings of the Bible.
With his exegeses, Ravasi fascinates even segments of the public that never go to Mass and have grudges against the Church. And so also with his conferences: there is such demand in every corner of Italy that to schedule a conference one must wait in line for one or two years.
Ravasi is a formidable Christian preacher, a Bernardino of Siena, a Paolo Segneri, a Bossuet in a humble modern version. When he gives an address he does not read it, and each time it seems that he improvises, but his composition flows as faultlessly as a printed book. He can expound competently upon any subject, and he is ready to cite a famous author for everything, but with the Bible always as the origin and end of it all.
He is a living encyclopedia from before the invention of the computer. And even after its invention, he continues to write longhand, without corrections, with many footnotes. A Pico della Mirandola of the third millennium.
And yet, as a child, there was nothing of the young prodigy about him. He studied just as much as his schoolmates, but stored away so much more, without letting this be seen. He began to learn Greek on his own after the fifth grade, so interested was he – he has said – in “those 64,327 words that make up the four Gospels in their original language.”
Then came Hebrew, and then a dozen other ancient and modern languages. But even during his theological studies, in the seminary in Venegono, the star students were others, not him. The diocese of Milan sent him to complete his studies in Rome, at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, where his future archbishop, Carlo Maria Martini, was teaching.
His first books were of pure biblical exegesis, like the three imposing volumes of his commentary on the Psalms. They are scholarly works, for specialists, but they were written in an elegant, compelling style that drew the attention of the major publishing houses. A shorter version of the commentary on the Psalms was added to the ‘Biblioteca Universale’ catalogue of the publisher Rizzoli, destined for the general public.
And so came the revelation of Ravasi as a great popularizer. If today the Sacred Scriptures have become familiar to many in Italy, this is due in large part to this priest born in the Brianza region, in Merate, in 1942.
Even as a professor of exegesis in the theological faculty of Milan, Ravasi immediately stuck out as extraordinary. While his subtle-minded theologian colleagues churned out lessons and texts of discouraging conceptual and linguistic complexity for their peers, he did not; he knew how to make himself understood by all with simple words full of substance, within and above all outside of the academic halls.
His success as a conference speaker and as a writer took off quickly. Today he is a regular collaborator with “Avvenire,” the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, and with the secular “Il Sole 24 Ore.” But everybody fights to get him as a guest author. His daily writings on the front page of “Avvenire,” entitled “Mattutino,” are gradually compiled and published as successful books.
When in 1989 the post of prefect of the Ambsosian Library and Gallery, in Milan, remained unoccupied, it was natural that the appointment should go to him, a great expert not only in ancient and modern books, but also in art and music. With Ravasi as prefect, the institution founded in 1607 by cardinal Federigo Borromeo got a jolt of celebrity unequaled in its four centuries of history.
But the Ambrosiana is not only an institution for literature and art – with masterpieces like the “Codice Atlantico” by Leonardo da Vinci, or the “Natura morta” by Caravaggio – but also for the Church. Before Ravasi, its prefects included illustrious cardinals and even a future pope, Achille Ratti, also born in Brianza, who became archbishop of Milan in 1921 and successor of Peter in 1922, with the name of Pius XI.
His critics accuse Ravasi of peddling smoke in order to win the favor of all. But he knows how to drop bombshells when necessary. On the crucial topics of abortion, euthanasia, unborn life, when ultimate principles are at stake, he is as cutting as a sword. He preaches absolute respect for the life of every person, at every moment, “for the same reason why respect is due even to the sinful man.”
Partly for this reason there has never been great harmony between him and cardinal Martini, his archbishop for more than twenty years, who is more hesitant and nuanced in applying principles to the complexity of real life.
But from Rome, the intransigent Joseph Ratzinger has always held Ravasi in great esteem. As pope, he delegated to him the task, last Holy Friday, of writing the texts of the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum: a certain sign of high favor.
Now he wants him close as president of the pontifical council for culture, replacing cardinal Paul Poupard.
But there’s more. Among the Biblicists of international fame, Ravasi is the one who has maintained the longest that one must speak of Jesus without separating man from God, as modern people and many exegetes tend to do, but in a seamless fashion.
In perfect harmony with the book “Jesus of Nazareth” written by Benedict XVI.
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An historian of the popes for the newspaper of the pope
“L’Osservatore Romano” sells just a few hundred copies at the newsstands. This is one of the effects of the direction of Mario Agnes, ensconced at the paper in 1984 by the head of the Vatican information office at the time, Crescenzio Sepe, today a cardinal and the archbishop of Naples.
Bringing “L’Osservatore Romano” back to the heights of its historic prestige will therefore be a difficult task for Agnes’ designated successor, the professor Giovanni Maria Vian, 55, a docent of the philology of ancient Christian literature at Rome’s “La Sapienza” university and a distinguished writer for the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, “Avvenire.”
Vian has had a foot in the Vatican since 1999, when he became a member of the pontifical committee of historical sciences, presided over by Germany’s Walter Brandmüller. One of his brothers, Paolo, is a “scriptor” at the Apostolic Vatican Library and head of the manuscripts department. In the pontifical directory of Church personnel, the historical notes for the chronological list of the popes from Saint Peter to Benedict XVI are the work of Giovanni Maria, and are updated each year according to the latest studies. It is thanks to him that we know, for example, that there was never a Pope John XX, and that the famous Borgia pope should not have called himself Alexander VI, but Alexander V.
The next director of “L’Osservatore Romano” has written the entries on Paul VI and John Paul II for the encyclopedia of the popes published in Italy by Treccani. He would also be happy to write the profile of Benedict XVI, so greatly does he admire him.
He has never disguised his deep disagreements with the historical outlook of the “school of Bologna” led by Giuseppe Dossetti, Giuseppe Alberigo, and Alberto Melloni, which sees in Vatican Council II a “new beginning” of Church history, in contrast to the detested “Constantinian” Church.
On the “donation of Constantine,” according to which the emperor is supposed to have conferred upon Sylvester and his successors dominion over Rome, Italy, and the West, Vian published through “il Mulino” in 2004 a book that not only unmasks this historical falsehood, but also re-evaluates Constantine with the words of Paul VI: “this emperor so contested by the same people who champion the religious freedom he inaugurated.”
The appointment of Giovanni Maria Vian as director of “L’Osservatore Romano” is scheduled for the middle of September.
To learn more about Vian’s book and the controversy over the “Constantinian” Church:
> Constantine 1700 Years Later: The Imperial Church of John Paul II (20.4.2004)
English translation by Matthew Sherry, Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
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This item 7738 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
