Message sent to CL on the occasion of Fr. Giussani death by Most Rev. Stanislaw Rylko & Msgr. Josef Clemens

Reverend Fr. Carrón: In this moment of pain for the separation from he who was the father and teacher in the faith of all those who, in the encounter with the experience of Communion and Liberation, have come to mature belonging to Christ, I wish to express to you and the entire Movement my own personal, deep closeness, and that of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. A powerful witness of Christ for the men of our times, Fr. Luigi Giussani spent his entire existence to affirm with passion Jesus of Nazareth, dead and risen, as the Event present in the history of the world, the visible sign of which is the communion of the Church. Always animated by filial love for the Church and the Successor of Peter, he educated generations of young people to the awareness that only in Christ is man more true and humanity truly more human, showing all the reasonableness of the faith that moves the freedom of the person to adhering to the Christian fact, understood as the only response that corresponds to the needs of the human heart. In thanking God for the gift of his person and teaching, I wish to express sentiments of lively gratitude for the benevolence with which Fr. Luigi Giussani always accompanied the work of our Dicastery, from the days of the recognition of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, and then of the Memores Domini Lay Association. In fact, he saw in this work of discernment a precious service to the ecclesial movements, which he loved without making distinctions, recognizing in them–and in doing so, echoing vigorously the magisterium of the Pope–a particular gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church of our times. As a Consultant of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, he never failed to bring the contribution of his lucid and authoritative thought to the Dicastery’s studies and initiatives, a commitment to which he was faithful to the end. In November, in fact, he sent his precious reflection for the twenty-first Plenary Assembly of the Council, dedicated to the subject of the parish. Now that he is contemplating the Presence and Mystery that constituted the very essence of his life, let us entrust to the Lord, through the intercession of Mary, “living fountain of hope,” the spiritual sons and daughters of Fr. Luigi Giussani, praying that the awareness of the paternity that was given to them in his person may constantly bring to their lives the fruit of holiness and communion. May they always walk in his footsteps, to witness to the world Christ, begging for the heart of man. May God welcome his obedient and faithful servant to the eternal home prepared for the just, and grant him peace. In united prayer,
Most Rev. Stanislaw Rylko,
President of the Pontifical Council of the Laity
Msgr. Josef Clemens, Secretary