Pope's secretary: healthy secularism reinforces Italian identity
Perugia’s University for Foreigners has bestowed an honorary degree in communications
systems in international relations on Msgr. Georg Gaenswein, Pope Benedict XVI’s personal
secretary. During the ceremony, Tuesday morning, Msgr. Gaenswein gave a keynote address
on "Church-State relations in Italy. Libertas Ecclesiae in the Concordat”,
in which he underlined that the Church and the State, although for different reasons,
are at the "service of the human person and the common good".
Retracing Church-State
relations in Italy from the Lateran Concordat of 1929 to the Villa Madama Agreement
the papal secretary noted how the 1984 Agreement affirmed "a new conception of sovereignty,
one that is no longer closed but open to serving humanity and the common good", for
which "a healthy partnership” is necessary, “even in the diversity of respective responsibilities".
Msgr Gaenswein recalled the vision of relations between Church and State in Italy
proposed by Benedict XVI during his visit to the Quirinal Palace in 2005. "The autonomy
of the temporal sphere – he said echoing the Pope words - does not preclude close
harmony with the superior and complex requirements arising from an integral vision
of man and his eternal destiny." The Concordat of 1929 and the 1984 agreements, he
added, "provide a legal framework for the realisation of a healthy secularism" of
which the Pope speaks, and one which "strengthens the identity of Italy."
Msgr
Gaenswein devoted a significant portion of his address to the City of Rome, expressing
his hopes for the approval of a series of norms that will allow it to best fulfil
its role as capital, international city and the seat of Catholicism. In particular,
Mgr. Gaenswein noted that Rome could be fitted with special laws attentive to areas
such as international relations, welcoming pilgrims and health and social services
for immigrants. Two recent events, he added, reinforce this view: the Great Jubilee
of 2000 and the funeral of Pope John Paul II, which saw a multitude of people flowing
into Rome and led authorities to reassess many urban areas.