Hardly do the first chimes of St. Peter's Basilica sound when we find ourselves in front of the Augustinian parish of St. Anne.
At 7:00 a.m., like an anthill amidst the heat of summer, Rome already endures the roasting torridity, the noises and sirens on yet another July day in the city that, in silence, in a climate of studied repose, guards one of the most important archives in the world.
The Apostolic Archives of the Holy See.
Among a labyrinthine deposit, opening and closing cabinets and doors, going up and down stairs that lead us to slide —like a sniffing mouse— through the centuries that hold the Tower of the Winds... Ronzani, the new prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Archives, shows us the nooks and crannies of twelve centuries of historical documentation.
We accompanied Father Josef Sciberras, Postulator General of the Order, Father Andrés Gómez, General Archivist, and two of his collaborators, coming from the Province of Colombia, through some of the most significant places of the Vatican Archives and Library.
Thank you very much, Father, for assisting the Communications Office of the General Curia in such a special place. First of all, how long have you known you were going to be the new Archivist of the Universal Church?
Well, during the spring of this year, I was contacted by the director of the Vatican Archives and Library, Monsignor Angelo Vincenzo Zani. I went there thinking that Monsignor Vincenzo wanted to know some aspect of our cultural activities as Augustinians, because our Province of Italy maintains relations in the field of cultural activities with the Vatican Library. So I went there and, to my surprise, he told me: "No. Look, Father, we are looking for a new prefect for the Archives".
Father, what does it mean for the Order that an Augustinian is in charge of the historical depository of the Church?
First, it is a service. Therefore, when an Augustinian is in charge of a mission, in whatever context - which could be a small parish in Equatorial Africa or in an office of the General Curia - it always means, for an Augustinian sight, a service. A service that we do perform with joy, because we know that we are serving the Church, the Pope and, to a certain extent, also the world of culture, in the concrete case of the one we are talking about.
Throughout the centuries, the Order has always provided these services in the field of culture. Precisely in the Archives, in the Vatican Library, there were two important Augustinians who performed the service that I have been asked to: Father Agostino Ciasca, who was truly one of the founders of the Order after the Spanish ecclesiastical confiscation by Mendizábal prime minister. He was one of the men who revitalized the Order in times of crisis. In those moments, in addition to having an adequate number of people who needed to grow, it was also necessary to have many ideas. And so, these men restarted the life of the Order. They were men of great, great ideals.
One of them, as I say, was Father Ciasca, a friend of Pacifico Neno, Prior General of the Order at the time of Leo XIII. Before that, for instance, we had Enrico Noris, from Verona, at the end of the 17th century. For four years he was an archivist. Great librarian, great theologian. He opened theological thought to the dimension of history, so that theology and history could dialogue with each other. Because sometimes theology, especially in the past, was too speculative.
It was a group of extraordinary Augustinian religious who did extraordinary things.
Father Ronzani, what has happened then that the Church has so many difficulties today in making known its history, its immense artistic and spiritual legacy? It seems that she finds it difficult to find a dialogue with the new generations through art and beauty?
"It seems". You have used the correct verb. Apparently so. It would seem so in some environments, in some places... Although in some nations it is unfortunately so: there is no alliance between the Church and the world of culture. However, in reality this alliance exists in many other environments. I can speak of the experience I have had in Italy: there is no ecclesial reality at the local level, at the level of religious life, that does not have a good relationship with the academic world, with the world of culture, the university, the school and also, to a certain extent, with the world of artists. Although the precise subject of art and, therefore, of artistic culture, is a more difficult subject.
Paul VI, in the 1970s, summoned artists -and before him, John XXIII-, precisely to rebuild a positive relationship, as it had been in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, in the time of the Reformation until, practically, the end of the modern age.
But everything has changed. We have an unavoidable demographic issue that influences a generational changeover. When I participated in the youth activities of my parish, there were one hundred and twenty of us in the older group alone. Today, you can barely form a group of twelve teenagers. And I am talking about thirty years ago. In thirty years there has really been a very important demographic decline that must be taken into account. But at the same time it is true that, whether small or large, the flock, small or large, must be guided. We need to find a way to awaken interest. Faith, if it is something that does not awaken interest, is a faith that is not lived and is poorly transmitted.
And then there is another major issue, which is that of communication.
What can be done in this regard in order to make known the immense patrimony of the Church, guarded in these rooms and shelves?
The Fathers of the Church are important for us and we study them; why?, only for the content of their theology? No. The Second Vatican Council says, in Gaudium et Spes, that the Fathers of the Church are important because of their content, but they are also important because of their method. That is to say, the communication, the way of transmitting content. So, not only faith, but also "the means of transmission". It is fundamental.
And how is this done? The Fathers of the Church spoke the Latin language, the Greek language, which were not only languages of the cultural elite; they were also the language of the people, of the simple people. And they spoke the language of the learned and the language of the people in the various ways of homily and treatise.
I believe that today we are very weak on this point; we invest little in communication. We need to work more on it, yes, but we have to work on communication after living what we want to communicate, don't we? It is a bit like a religious community: if the religious community has a beautiful mask, but there is nothing behind it, the mask is not enough to reach the hearts of the people. Therefore, first there must be the substance and then, from the substance comes the form and, with intelligence and imagination, the forms and the passion to reach people; to reach their hearts, to give them a message that gives meaning to their lives and allows them to live happily. This is what is important.
What do we keep in this Archive?
The documentation of the offices of the Roman Curia. It is the management center of the universal Church. We especially have archives of the most important offices: the Secretariat of State, the Chancellery, the Apostolic Chamber and many others. Our Archive is the largest island in an archipelago made up of smaller islands, which would be the historical archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of the Evangelization of Peoples and other smaller archives.
Therefore, most of the documentation we have, from the Middle Ages to the pontificate of Benedict XVI, is documentation that speaks of the great good that the Church has done in history through its charity, the promotion of culture, art, the promotion of human rights.
Then there are also the less positive aspects, that is, those that are linked to the limits, the fragility, the poverty, the miseries of men and women who in the Church have not always behaved according to the ideal of the Gospel. It is therefore a great archive of the life, in short, of the Church and, to a certain extent, also of the world, which is always in relation to the life of the Church. The Church is in the world and therefore cannot fail to have relations with States, peoples and other religions.
The Archive is a place where you can build bridges, create relationships; not to lose hope that men, despite many difficult situations, can still meet together. And I believe that this, not only the preservation of documents, but also making them available to scholars of many nations, many languages, many religions, many cultures, becomes an opportunity to create dialogue. And this is one of the vocations of the Archives.
What's the biggest find you've made during the time you've been here?
Well, first of all, when I walked in, I started taking a tour of all the rooms and storage rooms. I felt like a castaway in the ocean. It's a really vast world and not everything is known. There is still a lot to study, to put in order. The greatest discovery... I opened the doors of a cabinet in the office where I work and found inside the parchment with which the English nobles asked the Pope to annul the marriage of Henry VIII. That is, the document that is the origin of the birth of the Anglican Church, the schism with Rome and all the consequences it has had in history.
In that same cabinet are preserved two letters of Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which they declare their desire to create a relationship of friendship, to go beyond excommunications, and walk together to give a Christian message to the world, which is marked by the unity of those who believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
What is it about history that captivates you?
History is the meeting between men. It is not a general history of battles or events; it is a history of men, and to study history is to live better our humanity. This is the core of the interest that history still produces among people today: to know humanity in all its limits, but also in all its potential; in the richness that, despite the many limitations that exist, we have to make the world we live in a little better.
Every day sixty, seventy people come to study at the Archive; in a year we have about a thousand scholars from all over the world. So, if we manage to welcome them in a spirit of openness, dialogue and collaboration, I believe that this is the best way to transmit a message: the message of a Church that also wants to be welcoming in this area, wants to listen, learn and also do research together.
Comments