A helmsman with his bow towards the world
The canonization of Paul VI
by Gabriele Cantaluppi
When he was appointed Patriarch in Venice, Cardinal Roncalli joked by saying: "now I would only have the papacy left, but the next pope will be the archbishop of Milan" and, on the eve of the conclave that would have elected him, "if Montini had been there, I wouldn't have had a single hesitation, my vote would have been for him." He will be the first in the list of cardinals he created on 15 December 1958. Among the hypotheses on the removal of Montini from the Vatican Curia by Pius XII, there is also that of having sent him to Milan, the largest and most prestigious diocese of the world, aware that that passage would have put him on the candlestick and would have prepared his pontificate.
The saints next door are the beautiful face of the Church
Apostolic exhortation Gaudete et exultate
by Angelo Forti
Pope Francis, as in a musical overture, constantly returns to the theme of the joy of being Christian. The three apostolic exhortations of his pontifical magisterium are sung to the melody of joy. He began the first exhortation with the Evangelii gaudium, in the second exhortation to joy joy was added as the flowering of love, Amoris laetitia and, now, in the third exhortation, the note of joy returns with the rejoicing that leads to 'Exultation Gaudete et exsultate.
These joyful notes become jubilant, running through the musical score of the Beatitudes, a evangelical page that the Indian poet Gandhi called: "The highest words of human thought".
Montini in Milan: bishop, father, teacher and servant of the Gospel
Paul VI canonization in October
by Gabriele Cantaluppi
The faithful «today goes to the cinema, and everything appears clear to him; he goes to the theater and the same thing happens; he turns on the radio and television and everything is understandable to him", then "he finally goes to mass, and he understands nothing about everything that happens in front of him". These words, written in the letter on liturgical education for Lent in 1958, four years after his entry into the diocese, would be enough to give a glimpse of the soul with which Giovanni Battista Montini welcomed his commitment as archbishop of Milan. He recognized the specificity of Milan in the Italian national panorama, a city launched at breakneck speed towards modernity and economic development, in a very difficult historical moment, in which the economic problems of reconstruction, immigration from the south, the spread of atheism emerged and Marxism within the world of work.