To Fr Dennis Bensiek, Fr Filippo Pellini, Fr Gabriele Saccani
To Daniele Bonanni, Luca De Chiara, Giorgio Ghigo, Giacomo Landoni, Andrew Lee, Andreas Scholz, Philip Stokman

Dearest friends,

how much emotion and gratitude in celebrating the great day of your priestly and diaconal ordinations, the day when each of you affirms your moved and total “Yes” to Jesus Christ.

I embrace you in the name of the entire movement of Communion and Liberation, which, thanks to your encounter with the charism entrusted to Fr. Giussani, has been the path desired by Christ for you to reach this “Yes” that is so mysterious and shining in the eyes of the Church, the world and all of us.
My thanks also go, of course, to your families, your friends, your Superiors and the entire Fraternity of St. Charles.

As a wish for your journey of faith, in the mission that will be entrusted to you by God, I leave you these words of Fr. Mauro-Giuseppe Lepori:

[Christ] offers us a life (...) that does not die in eternity! Thus life is Him. (...) What else can attract us if not this? So, testimony, as the substance of true relationships, true friendship, true fraternity, as the substance of ecclesial communion, transmits this reality to the freedom of the other, proposes this reality from my freedom attracted by Christ to the freedom of the other attracted, called, not by me, but by Christ. “The teacher is here and is asking for you. [He!].”*

Deeply sorry that I cannot be there in person, I heartily entrust the entire movement to your prayers and greet you with enormous affection.


* (“Christ, the life of life”, booklet of the Spiritual Exercises of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, 2022, p. 57).