Today, October 15, Fr. Giussani's birthday, we like to celebrate him by telling to readers about a tool that may seem designed for scholars, experts, or theologians. The website scritti.luigigiussani.org is actually very easily accessible, even if just to search for a phrase or concept dear to him. And in no time you get words that warm the heart, that enlighten the mind.

The project was set up in 2004, and the “Scritti” website went online in 2009. It is now fifteen years old, making it possible to consult a literary legacy (whose potential is still to be fully explored) made up of speeches, books, and articles by the Ambrosian priest. With the aim of increasingly disseminating Fr. Giussani's thought. We are talking about a “container” where, free of charge upon registration, many texts can be consulted in full pdf format.

The first available text dates back to 1944 (later published in 2001). This is where the website begins, with the homily that Fr. Giussani gave from the pulpit of the basilica of Desio on December 26 of that year, while still a deacon. The biography The Life of Luigi Giussani recounts that the young seminarian filled eight notebook pages for that homily. And in a corner of one of the pages he wrote, for the first time, the short prayer that is so dear to every member of movement: Veni Sancte Spiritus. Veni per Mariam.

Fr. Giussani was a man who not only wrote but also talked a lot until the mid-1990s. In some cases, careful historical investigation has been necessary to confirm the authorship of the texts. Many of them, especially those that have been published multiple times over the years (for example, The Religious Sense), are accompanied by a file that reports their publishing history to offer the user, whether a mere reader or a scholar, as complete a scholarly record as possible.

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In total, there are 4,717 entries on the site, of which 1,426 are in Italian; a third are available in full as pdfs. There is also a “secondary bibliography,” a series of scholarly publications (volumes, theses, articles, conference proceedings) on Fr. Giussani and his thought. Texts that have been translated into English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilian Portuguese are also available. For other languages, a list of translations is provided, totalling nearly 3,000 foreign publications.

The hope is that the website will increasingly encourage the study of Fr. Giussani's work, but it also wants to be a point of reference for those who simply want to engage with his thought.
You just need to register for access.