A MODERN MYSTIC WHO SHARED BENEDICT'S IDEAS
He was decades ahead in anticipating the main features of the current pontificate.
And now his greatness is being discovered, thanks in part to an exhibit dedicated to him.
He lived in Florence, right in the thick of the turmoil of the Council and the period following it.
A critical comment from the theologian Paolo Giannoni.
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, August 28, 2007 – At this year's international meeting held in Rimini, as it is each August, Communion and Liberation dedicated an exhibit to a Christian personality of great significance who is far too little known: "Divo Barsotti, the last mystic of the twentieth century."
Divo Barsotti – who died at the age of 92 on February 15, 2006, at his hermitage of Saint Sergius in Settignano, north of Florence – was a priest, a theologian, the founder of the Community of the Children of God, and an extraordinary mystic and spiritual master.
One year before his death, the founder of Communion and Liberation, Fr. Luigi Giussani, died in Milan. The two never met in person, but they had great respect for each other.
This year, Communion and Liberation chose this theme for the Rimini Meeting: "The truth is the destiny for which we were made."
And it was precisely on the primacy of the truth that Fr. Barsotti founded all of his life and teaching, in prophetic harmony with the major outlines of the current pontificate. One more reason to rediscover and accentuate his legacy.
In life, Divo Barsotti often found himself alone and misunderstood. When he was a young priest, isolated in his diocese of San Miniato. When he arrived in Florence, understood and supported by few. He again remained alone, for years, in his hermitage in Settignano, abandoned by his first followers. And so also later, ignored and undervalued until the end of his life by much of the Catholic media and intelligentsia.
He was self-taught, with no theology degree. He wrote a great deal: 160 books and countless articles and scattered papers, but no systematic work. And yet his written and oral production bears witness to a depth, a consistency, a foresightedness, a critical acumen, a freedom of spirit that stand out today as absolutely out of the ordinary.
When almost no one in Italy was familiar with Russian spirituality, he was the first to introduce it, with the first of his books, in 1946, and then to spread it. He named his hermitage in Settignano, on the hills of Florence, after the great Russian saint Sergius of Radonezh.
But when orientalism became fashionable, and more for aesthetic than for spiritual reasons, he leveled withering criticism against it: "We Florentines have Blessed Angelico, Masaccio, Giotto, Cimabue. Are they, perhaps, unable to compete with the Russian icons? But of course they compete, and they win, too."
While the manuals of moral theology held a weary dominance in Italy and in the Roman theological faculties during the 1940's and '50's, Barsotti didn't miss a single book by the great French promoters of
ressourcement, the return to biblical, patristic, and liturgical sources: Jean Daniélou, Louis Bouyer, Henri De Lubac.
In 1951, when he published his masterpiece entitled
Il mistero cristiano nell'anno liturgico[The Christian Mystery in the Liturgical Year], he was the first in Italy to develop and elaborate theses similar to those of Odo Casel – the German Benedictine who upheld the objective efficacy of the liturgy in representing the Christian narrative – even before he had read his writings.
But he never remained silent about an author's weak points, no matter how much he respected him. With Hans Urs von Balthasar – who, before dying in 1988, was his spiritual director for six months – Barsotti did not spare his criticisms of his questionable theories about hell: "If there were no hell, I could not accept paradise."
He was no less critical of those who entrusted themselves to him as their spiritual master. Giuseppe Dossetti was his spiritual son beginning in 1951 – beginning, that is, when he abandoned politics to become a monk and priest and to dedicate himself to renewing the Church in his own way, until his death in 1996.
But Barsotti by no means approved of all of his political and theological ideas. One day he wrote in his diary: "It seems it would be better if Fr. Giuseppe would retire to some abandoned little island in Hong Kong."
Above all, Barsotti did not accept the fact that Dossetti was so closely connected to Giuseppe Alberigo and his interpretation of Vatican Council II and of the postconciliar period as a "new beginning" in Church history. He saw the close company of the two as a "danger." He came to the point of presenting Dossetti with an either-or: either breaking with Alberigo, or the end of Barsotti's spiritual direction.
The same thing happened with other eminent Florentine Catholics like Giorgio La Pira, Gianpaolo Meucci, and Mario Gozzini, when he did not approve of their political and ecclesial positions.
Fr. Barsotti even directed criticisms at the popes, which to him was an act of justice "willed by the Lord."
In 1971, he was called to the Vatican to preach to Pope Paul VI and the Roman curia at the spiritual retreat for the beginning of Lent. In his preaching, he dealt with the topic of the power of Peter and said – as he later recorded in his diaries – that "
the Church has coercive power because God entrusted this to it, and so it must use it. During those years, in fact, anarchy was spreading through the Church, and the Churches of Northern Europe were taunting the Holy Father."
By "coercive power," Barsotti means the assertion of truth and the condemnation of error, exactly what Vatican Council II and a great part of the Catholic hierarchy after it declined to do, as he said and wrote a number of times: it was a refusal "that practically negated the very essence of the Church."
Barsotti was a convinced admirer of John Paul II, for the same reason that the Catholic intelligentsia undervalued him:
"What has shown us most of all that Christ is present in this pope is the exercise of a magisterium that, more than the latest council, has affirmed the truth and condemned error." A pope "who has always taught the exclusive nature of the Christian faith: it is Christ alone who saves."
But Barsotti did not silence his criticisms even of pope Wojtyla, the "pillar of the Church," for example in regard to the 1986 interreligious meeting in Assisi. In this, he wrote, "the pope's intentions were perfectly clear."
But the same was not true of the deductions made by many churchmen, who "asserted that the event in Assisi [was] the first step along a journey that should lead to the unity, in peace, of every dogmatic faith."
In two letters, Barsotti wrote to John Paul II that
his papal magisterium was "more important than, or at least just as important as, the magisterium of the most recent Council," which "had made only slight modifications to the unbroken testimony of tradition," and so "it is inexplicable why the latest Council is cited almost exclusively."
Barsotti enjoyed the silent respect even of the progressive Catholics, but not because he expressed the same expectations. On the contrary.
In the life of the Church in Italy and the world, he represented the resistance to postconciliar tendencies, in the name of the "fundamentals" of the Christian faith. He saw few prominent churchmen who were equally decisive in "placing the emphasis on the essential, on the newness of Christ, which is what the Church needs most today."
In 1990 he indicated two such churchmen, Joseph Ratzinger and Giacomo Biffi, who later became his two favorite candidates for the papacy.
And when the first of the two really did become pope, in 2005, what took place was a sort of passing of the torch. While Barsotti, now over ninety years old, gradually stopped writing and speaking, the pontificate of Benedict XVI affirmed "urbi et orbi" – with the authority of the successor of Peter – precisely those theses that the Tuscan priest had maintained throughout his entire life.
There is a very strong resemblance between the diagnosis of the Council and the period following it formulated by Barsotti and the one made by Ratzinger both before and after his election as pope, most recently in the conversation he held last July 24 with the priests of Cadore.
There is a noteworthy affinity between the two in their seeking out nourishment in the Church's great tradition and breaking this bread among the great numbers of ordinary Christians.
In the case of Benedict XVI, it should be enough to think of his two cycles of Wednesday catecheses: the first, dedicated to the apostolic Church, with individual profiles of the apostles and the other main characters of the New Testament; the second, dedicated to the Greek and Latin fathers of the first centuries of the Church, which has now arrived at the depiction of the great bishops and theologians of Cappadocia – Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nissa.
There is perfect agreement between Barsotti and Pope Ratzinger on the manner of reading the Sacred Scriptures and penetrating their profound meaning: not solely with the tools of the historical and philological sciences, but also in the light of their ultimate Author, the Holy Spirit, recognizable in the Church's tradition.
The two also share similar views on politics and history. Both are extremely opposed to the idea that in earthly history there is the progressive construction, almost by natural evolution, of a kingdom of peace and justice. Both are absolutely certain that the "eschaton," the ultimate and definitive act of salvation for man and for the world, is already present here and now, and is nothing other than the crucified and risen Jesus.
The "Christian mystery" is him, Jesus crucified and risen, who is seated at the right hand of the Father but at the same time becomes bread for man in the Eucharist. The events of the mystery are made real in the Mass. Here, too, there is extraordinary agreement between Barsotti's book
The Christian Mystery in the Liturgical Year and the later reflections and homilies of Benedict XVI in the pontifical Masses.
From the book
Jesus of Nazareth, the chief work of this pontificate, to the centrality of the Eucharist, to the encyclical
Deus Caritas Est, the magisterium of Benedict XVI presents a dazzling cohesion.
It is the same cohesion that appeared in the life and works of Barsotti. In a footnote of his 1951 book
The Christian Mystery in the Liturgical Year, there is a reflection on eros and agape that is stunning for how it anticipates the heart of pope Ratzinger's encyclical.
In both of these, there is the awareness that the Church lives on the foundation of truth, and that it is only from "veritas" that "caritas" arises, just as the Spirit proceeds "ex Patre Filioque": from the Father and from the Son who is the Logos, the Word of God.
In what may have been his last public writing, a commentary on a book published in 2006 on the Christian philosopher Romano Amerio, Divo Barsotti left just this bequest:
"I see the Church's progress beginning from here, from the return of holy Truth as the basis of every action. The peace promised by Christ, freedom, love are the goals that every man must attain, but he may reach them only after constructing the foundation of truth and the pillars of faith."
___________
And his disciple Paolo Giannoni reopens the dispute "Florence against Rome".
The rediscovery of Fr. Divo Barsotti – with the opening of the cause for his beatification not far off – also brings to the center of attention the situation of the Church of Florence to which he belonged, a situation analyzed by an article from
www.chiesa on June 25, 2007:
>Florence Against Rome: A Catholicism in a State of Unease
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=150941&eng=y
A reply has come to the analysis proposed in that article – mainly by professor Pietro De Marco, also from Florence – from another prominent exponent of Florentine Catholicism: Fr. Paolo Giannoni, 72, for almost half a century a teacher at the Theological Faculty of Florence and Central Italy, today a Camaldolese Benedictine monk and hermit at the Church of Sant'Andrea in Mosciano.
The reply from Fr. Giannoni – which is very extensive and well elaborated, with acute criticism of the doctrinal "refocusing" and the revival of the sense of Christian identity as promoted by the two most recent popes – is presented in its entirety, in Italian, on this other page of
www.chiesa:
> Identità cristiana o progetto di potere? Una riflessione sulla Chiesa di Wojtyla e Ratzinger
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=163041
Giannoni cites Barsotti twice in his 6300-word reply.
The first time, he recalls that like other representatives of the Florentine Church, Barsotti, too, was sometimes misunderstood and opposed by the ecclesiastical hierarchy:
"The current 'canonization' of Fr. Barsotti cannot ignore the suffering he endured on account of the opposition against his books during the 1950's, while he was living out and bringing a unique richness to the theological and spiritual life of Europe at that time."
In effect, in 1960 the Vatican congregation of the Holy Office censored his book
Commento all'Esodo [A Commentary on Exodus], which was published in France with an imprimatur, but was banned in Italy. Barsotti was called to Rome and required to issue a retraction. The book was in the clear after Vatican Council II, and is now in its sixth edition in Italy, under the title
Meditazioni sull'Esodo [Meditations on Exodus]."
The second time he cites Barsotti, Giannoni writes:
"Fr. Barsotti's voice was problematic but precious, even if by this time he had taken a stance of hardline criticism toward contemporary culture. Unfortunately he established a self-sufficiency that was certainly always fruitful but was closed off and bitter in a soul that otherwise held things of the most tender sweetness; and this is said with grateful love toward a father in the Spirit."
These words contain both criticism and admiration. Although he can be numbered among the sophisticated progressive Catholics, Fr. Giannoni recognizes that he, too, was a spiritual son of Barsotti.
And in effect, the edition currently available in Italy of Barsotti's masterpiece,
The Christian Mystery in the Liturgical Year, opens with a preface by Fr. Giannoni, from his hermitage in Mosciano.
On the website of the Communion and Liberation meeting in Rimini, the page dedicated to the exhibit on Divo Barsotti:
> "Divo Barsotti. A 20th-century’s mystical man"
www.meetingrimini.org/default.asp?id=846&item=4365#e4365
The earlier articles about Barsotti from
www.chiesa:
> The End of a Taboo: Even Romano Amerio Is "A True Christian" (6.2.2006)
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=45538&eng=y
> A Philosopher, a Mystic, and a Theologian Sound an Alarm for the Church (7.2.2005)
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=22372&eng=y