The Legacy of Cardinal Martini

By Carlo Casalone SJ, 10 January 2023
A June 1994 file image of the late Cardinal Maria Martini SJ. Image: Vatican News

 

His Origins and Inspirations

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the death of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini (1927-2012), numerous books have been published and various articles have appeared in magazines and newspapers. Many aspects of the cardinal’s life, thought and pastoral ministry, have been recalled and studied. Recent texts explore the way Martini carried out his commitment at the European level and some experiences of the period when he lived in Rome as a teacher and rector at the pontifical institutions entrusted to the Jesuits (the Biblical Institute and the Gregorian University).[1]

Other publications take their cue from his reflections, showing their ability to be a leaven for contemporary culture[2] and for the life of the Church.[3]  Among the latter, the re-publication of the volume Il Vescovo (The Bishop) stands out, with its considerations and comments by the Bishop of Rome. Indeed, Pope Francis enthusiastically accepted the proposal from Paulist Press and the Martini Foundation to engage with the cardinal’s reflections on a ministry dear to them both.[4] In addition, numerous studies and research projects are underway, including some doctoral theses. We will thus be able to know the thought and focus of Martini with more completeness and greater precision.

The multiplicity of the themes he dealt with and the initiatives he undertook with originality, wisdom and breadth of vision raise the question: is it possible to identify a generating center of his thinking and working? In fact, on the one hand, his activity and his interventions are characterized by a unifying stamp that pushes us to look for the soul that inspired them; on the other hand, the attempt to list the themes or to pigeonhole Martini’s ideas by means of criteria that do not support their intrinsic dynamic always leaves us somewhat unsatisfied. This is the question we propose to explore in the following pages.

The connection between the Bible and Ignatius of Loyola

Martini himself suggests where to look in order to identify the terrain in which his manner of proceeding is rooted: it is the line of intersection between the Bible and the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola. Let us take up the words with which he describes the experience that – during his studies in philosophy at the Aloisianum Institute in Gallarate (where 65 years later his earthly life would come to an end) – opened up to him the prospect of reading the Bible through the prism of Ignatian spirituality: “Toward the age of twenty I picked up the booklet of Saint Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises and began to read it word by word: I can still see myself walking in the pine forest of the Aloisianum in Gallarate, savoring that booklet and discovering extraordinary things in it: little by little I realized that Saint Ignatius makes one read the Bible, trying to grasp some fundamental key, starting from the centrality of Jesus and the cross. So I put together this spiritual experience of the Exercises for me with that of Scripture.”[5]  Elsewhere he said of the Ignatian text: “It is a true source of inspiration, even if I do not refer to it explicitly, but I feed on it very freely.”[6]

From this union seems to spring a distinctive and qualifying element, even if not immediately evident, that needs to be deepened. In fact, it easily escapes notice, since it concerns not only the contents of the reflections and the specific initiatives, but also the means and the interior paths through which they have matured.[7]

Such an approach will help the reader, moreover, not to get lost in a myriad of rivulets that risk losing our interest when their connection with the particular circumstances to which they refer is blurred. The result would be to make them seem outdated and therefore destined to be hastily archived.[8] This, of course, does not mean ignoring interventions that maintain all their validity and show Martini’s prophetic charisma, especially when they concern issues that are still burning and unresolved: think of issues such as peace, war, justice, migration, care for the city, the construction of a Europe of peoples, and dialogue between different religions and visions of the world.[9]

The Ignatian inspiration for Martini’s ministry

The strength of Martini’s thought lay in his ability to involve his interlocutors in an interior experience, as was typical of Ignatius. It is emblematic that Ignatius did not elaborate a treatise on the spiritual life, but rather a series of articulated exercises: an approach that combines rigor in the development of the stages and timetables (it is not surprising that Martini used scholastic terms, such as “school” or “chair” for his initiatives) with flexibility in adapting to the varying profiles and rhythms of the people. His fundamental intent is to foster a personal encounter between Creator and creature. Everything else is ordered to this interaction, which takes place in the dynamic of the conscience. For Ignatius, in fact, whoever approaches the Spiritual Exercises must take extreme care to foster the experience of a mutual encounter with the Lord, avoiding interfering and letting “the Creator work directly with the creature and the creature with its Creator and Lord” (Spiritual Exercises [SE], No. 15). These are the terms in which the Basque saint describes the task of those who accompany others on their spiritual journey.[10]

In order to favor this “direct operation,” a privileged place of maturation and conversion of conscience, it is necessary to prepare the conditions. Martini developed in a special way this aspect not only as director of courses of spiritual exercises, but also as bishop of the Ambrosian diocese, both in public moments and in personal encounters. There are numerous testimonies of those who had this experience in dealings with him, in the variety of situations and biographical paths. Suffice it to cite as recent examples the statements of the journalist Silvia Giacomoni and the well-regarded businessman and MEP Gabriele Albertini.[11]

The Ignatian articulation of ‘lectio divina

The pastoral approach that has captured the essence of this dynamic is the lectio divina, with which Martini was able to introduce very diverse groups to the experience of listening to the Bible. He took the  four traditional steps (lectiomeditatiooratio and contemplatio) and interpreted and integrated them in an Ignatian key (consolatiodiscretiodeliberatio and actio).

Without going into the individual stages, which according to 16th-century theology were necessary to make a good choice, we note only that Martini understood lectio as a “complex, progressive activity, made up of successive stages or moments”[12] and the connection between meditation and action as an articulated path: “The psychological structure that leads from thinking to acting is rich and complex, requiring the dynamics of affects, the evaluation that chooses, the decision that deliberates.”[13]

Prayer, in the encounter with the Lord Jesus, thus becomes leaven for life, transforms evaluation criteria and infuses energy for responsible and free action according to the message of the Gospel. In fact, listening to the Word remains incomplete if it is not translated into a lived life and concrete action. The questions that Martini posed with incisive simplicity to his interlocutors at the end of the meditations carried out the function of building a bridge toward effective existence.

The Bible as the educational book of humanity

But the lectio divina, which from a first experience in the Duomo developed like “a tree with many branches,”[14] is but a particular and almost stylized example of a fundamental conviction about the “educational value of the Bible.” It is an idea that Martini stressed several times, in particular when he received a degree honoris causa in Educational Sciences at the Catholic University of Milan, on April 11, 2002.[15] On that occasion he expressed his hope that the Bible would become an educational book not only for Europe, but for the whole world, and said that this was the cornerstone on which he had centered the pastoral project of his entire episcopate, which was now coming to an end: to help the Christian people to become familiar with the Bible, learning to pray from it, according to the dictates of the Second Vatican Council (cf. Dei Verbum, ch. VI).[16]

The Bible is indeed universal in scope from several points of view. First of all on a literary level, because, on the one hand, it employs a variety of powerful literary genres, captivating stories and evocative poetry; and on the other hand, various European languages have been shaped by their respective translations.[17] Moreover, its sapiential scope is recognized, touching as it does on universal questions of the human condition: every person of any age and culture can find him or herself at least in part in the biblical words.

Sacred Scripture also introduces us into the dimension of history: it recounts the vicissitudes of a people in relation to other peoples, on its way to liberation through its gradual establishment as a national community. From here derives the role attributed to memory, which is much neglected in our society. In the continuous barrage of news stories that overlap one another, we struggle to remember. There is a risk of living on the basis of the latest impressions, which condition the judgment we bring to bear on situations, making it difficult to make a synthesis of one’s own experience and to put current events into perspective. Instead, the word of God written in the Bible “is born, in fact, from the will of a people to remember, not to rely on the latest  emotions or the latest events, but to recall the wonders done by God.”[18]

Biblical recollection is also closely linked to the movements of the heart, to feelings, which are often decisive factors in making choices. Assiduous familiarity with the Bible enables the work of clarification and reordering of the emotions: it gradually increases awareness and frees one from conditioning, deactivating the “automatic pilot.”[19] In other words, it encourages that processing of the emotional world which is indispensable for the passage to adulthood. By sincerely acknowledging what has actually been experienced without denying or repressing it, even when it is painful because it is personally or socially unacceptable, one can begin to distinguish the reasons for joy and compassion from those of disgust or indifference, that is, the constructive forces from those that tend to demolish. The Bible offers points of reference for directing one’s affections toward what is true and right. In this way we will be able to hear the voice of the Spirit who dwells in us and animates our prayer: contemplating our own feelings in and with Jesus, as Saint Paul teaches,[20]  will give impetus to an effective conversion and not an imaginary one.

The work of synthesizing the existence and reorganizing the affections must not, however, obscure a deeper aspect of the word of God contained in the Bible, that is, its dimension of gift: “Through this Word, He gives Himself to me, He speaks to me, He nourishes me with His life, He communicates to me His love, His power, His divinity […]. When I am in front of the Word, […] I receive a gift and it is this receiving of the gift that declares a central dimension and characterizes me as a human person. I am a human person in that I receive God who gives God’s self to me in God’s Son and in God’s Word. For this reason I have expressed on several occasions the persuasion – which may seem paradoxical – that in our increasingly unbelieving, atheistic, indifferent European world, a Christian cannot live the faith if he or she does not become familiar with the word of God, through lectio divina.[21]

The maturation of the inner person

There is nothing mechanical about the effects that come from listening to Scripture. For it to be fruitful, certain conditions are needed that must precede, accompany and follow meditation on the Bible. Martini highlights them by referring to the Canadian Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan.[22] Beyond the specific philosophical perspective used, the insistence falls on the fact that the educational dynamic of the person is characterized by an openness that leads him or her to an incessant exodus from him- or herself, urging a continuous conversion at different levels: ethical, which promotes a growing ability to commit oneself to the good in a disinterested and authentic way; religious, which concerns the recognition of the incomparability of God as the fruit of the gift of God’s grace; intellectual, in which a new awareness matures of what the search for truth means. This search consists in a process that is above all interior, because truth dwells in the inner self and emerges at the end of a process that takes place through experiencing, understanding, evaluating and judging, without excluding belief. This intellectual conversion leads to the recognition of the supreme value of interiority.

Therefore, according to Martini, it is not enough to stop at the contents of knowing, wanting and loving, but, in order to grasp the scope of the entire interior dynamic, it is necessary that the person is present to him- or herself in the actual unfolding of these processes.[23] The primacy of conscience in its deepest sense unfolds therefore when the subject becomes aware and takes possession of the paths by which he or she comes to know, want and love. The human subject is on a journey of continuous growth, in a dynamism of ever more conscious perception of one’s own articulated interiority, which nourishes one’s capacity to correct the self and to act with courage, authenticity and responsibility.

The cardinal therefore had a clear awareness of this formative intent and pursued it with programmatic lucidity. He himself, using Pauline language, summarized it as care and strengthening of the “inner person” (Eph 3:16), who grasps the primacy of invisible things over visible things (cf. 2 Cor 4:16-18). This is shown by the answer he gave to those who asked him what Ignatius’ main message would be for the third millennium: “It seems to me that one fact emerges above all others: that of the value of interiority. I mean by this term everything that concerns the sphere of the heart, of deep intentions, of decisions that start from within.”[24]

Personal consciousness and authority

It should be made clear that interiority is not to be understood as an individualistic vision closed in on itself, but expresses the primacy of conscience in its broadest and deepest sense. It is a perspective in which human experience takes on primordial value, open to the action of grace, which through the dynamism by which it is impelled leads to understanding, verification and consolidation of operative certainties. Education consists in helping people to become aware with gratitude of this surprising dynamism, which invites them to continually surpass themselves in knowledge and love.

The “inner person” is not immediately visible, but flourishes in the quality of a persuasive and authoritative word. What the cardinal says about the practice of authority, understood as a service that fosters this growth of authenticity, takes on new importance: an “authority that does not compress consciences, but makes them grow by conforming them to the model of the Son in the Trinity.”[25] This is what is needed in the Church today: “respect for persons, their autonomy and their intelligence. […] Attention to the singularity of the person, to his or her unrepeatability and incomparability and weakness, have much more lasting effects.”[26]

True parenthood is thus expressed not by setting out a path fixed a priori, but by stimulating the maturation of the conscience and responsibility of the subject: God manifests God’s self in the Bible as the educator of God’s people, leading them in Jesus to become aware of their own dignity as sons and daughters and to act, inspired by the mercy that is proper to the Father in heaven (cf. Matt 6:48; Luke 6:36). Here we find the secret of peace, in the depths of the heart and in relationships between people, which today we continue to invoke for all peoples in their difficult coexistence on earth.[27]

Fragility and efficacy of the Word

Returning now to lectio divina, we see how its practice is a fundamental experience of formation of the conscience, which promotes the capacity to decide for the good to be done here and now, interpreted as such in the perspective of the Gospel. Martini considered this appeal to conscience inalienable even in situations where it seems most disarming, if not liable to failure.

It is significant that, in a speech to prison chaplains, he attributed to the personal conscience of offenders a central role in their path to rehabilitation. Recalling the prophet Nathan awakening David’s conscience before rebuking him for his sin (cf. 2 Sam 12:1-12), the cardinal specifies: “This is why we are told not to judge and not to condemn. It is up to us to help a person to listen to the judgment of his or her own conscience: it is a spiritual exercise to be practiced, to be done together in listening, for example, to the word of God and in religious silence.” If a judgment that comes from outside arouses hostility and rebellion, “on the contrary, the inner judgment, that of personal conscience, is recognized and accepted, at least for a few moments, even by the worst of men and women. One submits more willingly to the authority of one’s conscience: even the rebel, the anarchist, the enemy of every norm and every foreign power submits.”[28]

One could ask oneself if this emphatic appeal to the awakening of awareness and the free assumption of one’s own responsibilities is not an illusion. But Martini’s experience of the force unleashed from the School of the Word strengthened him in this unshakable trust, which turns out to be, after all, more realistic than merely coercive methods. Listening to the testimony of Fr. Luigi Melesi, chaplain in the prison of San Vittore in that period, one can realize the validity of that perspective.

Decide to surrender your weapons

In fact, the new bishop chose to begin his pastoral visits in the diocese with the prison of San Vittore. Not only did he circulate in the corridors, but he also wanted to enter the cells, in particular to meet the terrorists. “An understanding, a feeling, a sympathy, I would say a friendship, an overwhelming trust was established between the cardinal and these prisoners. I understand why later, when we discussed who to give the weapons to, they proposed to give them to Cardinal Martini. I offered myself as mediator for this disarmament and we collected three big bags of weapons: Kalashnikovs, pistols, hand grenades, rocket launchers, dynamite, bullets.”[29] This arsenal was then delivered to the Archbishop’s residence as a symbolic gesture of renunciation of violent struggle.

Fr. Melesi also wondered why they decided to turn to Martini: “They wanted to give them to Martini because he was the only one who had listened to them and because they had listened to the sermon he had given in the Duomo during the School of the Word, commenting on the Miserere, Psalm 51. They followed these explanations from prison and when we discussed disarmament, disassociation, possible operations to be done to improve their conditions, they came to say: ‘We deliver the weapons to the cardinal because he is the only one who listened to us and also understood us, who appreciated our positive ideals, while not accepting the violent method to reach these ideals’.”[30]

We note how the moving words of Fr. Melesi also illustrate the sequence of steps of the lectio, which we see unfolding in an almost spontaneous way.  It is the experience of the consolation aroused by a welcoming listening that gives the strength to recognize the evil done, to mature the will to come out of it and to evaluate the possible good and to put into practice. From an encounter in which one experiences understanding, and also appreciation for the plausible aspects, emerges the possibility of acting in a new and constructive way, without glossing over the crimes committed, nor letting oneself be paralyzed by them. Certainly these words also manifest, with regard to the efficacy of the proclamation of the Gospel and the ripening of its fruits, the inseparable link between the proclamation and the proclaimer, between the contents proposed and the effective self-giving in the handing over to the other.

Meeting and dialogue

Also in more ordinary situations Martini practiced this style when meeting people, and shaped his matured thanks on his frequent recourse to Scripture. His approach as a biblical scholar attentive to the variants of the codes, and therefore to the interaction between the text and the circumstances in which it is inscribed, inspired him also in dialogue with people: deepening the meaning of the terms, exploring the meanings of the story, knowing that in a new context the act of reading and of communication allows the word to resonate in a new way.

In his relationship with others, the cardinal did not so much seem to want to convert as to foster awareness of the inner reactions evoked by the encounter and the shared message. The Gospel can thus be grasped as a reality that benefits the other and leads to placing oneself beside that person in respect and dedication. This opens up a space that allows freedom to take a step toward the good.

The most significant gesture is, after all, that of offering one’s own person as a gift: the handing over of oneself in the specific situation and in the immediacy of the moment. This ultimately counts for the interlocutor: to be accepted as he or she is, to be recognized in the desire to understand the deepest and most authentic meaning of one’s own existence. Care for the relationship is therefore equally, if not more, important than the content of the discourse. Here then are the three cornerstones around which, according to Martini, every effective dialogue revolves: listening with a welcoming spirit, esteeming the interlocutor, learning from everyone. With these premises, the conversion to be sought is not so much that of the other person, but rather one’s own.

* * *

As we identify the generating nucleus from which the style and the manner of proceeding of Martini sprang, as we have tried to do in these pages, it seems to us crucial also to receive the inheritance that he has entrusted to us and to avoid its dissolution. The transmission of an inheritance, in fact, is a symbolic gesture that brings into play a double recognition: on the one hand, a parent shows trust in his or her children and recognizes in them a desire similar to the one that led to the constitution of the patrimony to be transmitted; on the other hand, the children recognize the gift offered and the bond that is consolidated in receiving it. This gift is certainly relative to the things of which the patrimony is composed, but more profoundly it concerns the desire that passes through it and the spirit that animates it. To embrace Martini’s inheritance means, therefore, not so much preserving, re-proposing, commemorating, or perhaps yearning for what Martini listened to, said and accomplished, but much more, thanks to what we continue to learn from him, to listen to and respond to the signs with which the Lord manifests himself today present and at work in history.

Carlo Casalone SJ is a Member of the Scientific Section of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Reproduced with permission from La Civiltà Cattolica.

 

[1].      Cf. respectively F. Perugi, Storia di una sconfitta. Carlo Maria Martini e la Chiesa in Europa (1986-1993), Rome, Carocci, 2022; R. Zuccolini, La Parola e i poveri. Storia di un’amicizia cristiana, Cinisello Balsamo (Mi), San Paolo, 2022.

[2]. This is the aim of the “Martini Lectures” which take place every year at the Bicocca University in Milan. Personalities from the world of culture and public life are invited to develop their reflections starting from some pages of the cardinal’s work. The last edition was inspired by the Chair for Non-believers and dedicated to science and technology (cf. L. Floridi – F. Cabitza, Intelligenza artificiale. L’uso delle nuove macchine, Milan, Bompiani, 2021).

[3].      Cf. A. Matteo, La Chiesa che verrà. Riflessioni sull’ultima intervista di Carlo Maria Martini, Cinisello Balsamo (Mi), San Paolo, 2022, which starts from the sentence in which the cardinal denounced the Church’s two-century-long delay, a theme taken up by Pope Francis in his Address to the Roman Curia,   the 2019 Christmas greetings.

[4].      Cf. Pope Francis – C. M. Martini, Il vescovo. Il pastore, Cinisello Balsamo (Mi), San Paolo, 2022.

[5].      C. M. Martini, “La mia storia con la Scrittura”, in Id., Nel sabato del tempo. Discorsi, interventi, lettere e omelie 2000, Milan – Bologna, Centro Ambrosiano – EDB, 2001, 606f.

[6].      Id., “Il soffio dello Spirito, oggi”, in Id., Il Padre di tutti: lettere, discorsi, interventi 1998, Milan – Bologna, Centro Ambrosiano – EDB, 1999, 184.

[7].      For a similar reinterpretation referring to the way in which the cardinal understood charity and the practices inspired by it, cf. G. Costa, “Alle radici spirituali dell’impegno sociale. L’eredità di Carlo Maria Martini”, in Aggiornamenti sociali 73 (2022) 455-464; Id. “Introduzione”, in C. M. Martini, Farsi prossimo, Milan, Bompiani, 2022, XXV-LXVI.

[8].      Cf. S. Giacomoni, “Un silenzio da rompere”, in A. Giovagnoli – D. Bessi (eds), Carlo Maria Martini: il vescovo e la città, Milan, Vita e Pensiero, 2022, 122.

[9].      Cf. M. Garzonio, “Magistero e attualità. La luce di Martini per illuminare un’epoca disorientata”, in Corriere della Sera, August 29, 2022, 6.

[10].    Cf. C. M. Martini, “Il servizio dei gesuiti nella Chiesa di oggi”, in Civ. Catt. 2006 III 108f; a similar resonance can be found in: “We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them” (Francis, Amoris Laetitia, No. 37).

[11].    Cf. S. Giacomoni, Diavolo di un cardinale, Milan, Bompiani, 2021, and the interview with D. Re, “Martini insegnò ad interpretare la complessità”, in Avvenire (Cronaca di Milano e Lombardia), August 28, 2022, 1.

[12].    C. M. Martini, Gesù, Perché parlava in parabole, Cinisello Balsamo (Mi), San Paolo, 2017, 132.

[13].    Ibid., 27.

[14].    F. Agnesi, “Introduzione”, in C. M. Martini, La Scuola della Parola, Milan, Bompiani, 2018, XXXIX.

[15].    Cf. C. M. Martini, “Il valore sommo dell’interiorità”, in Id., Perché il sale non perde il sapore. Discorsi, interventi, lettere e omelie 2002, Bologna, EDB, 2003, 221-229.

[16].    Cf. Id., “Il ruolo centrale della Parola di Dio nella vita della Chiesa”, in Civ. Catt. 2012 III 464.

[17].    Cf. Luther’s translation for German and The King James Bible in  English.

[18].    C. M. Martini, “Geremia. Una voce profetica nella città”, in Id., I grandi della Bibbia. Esercizi spirituali con l’Antico Testamento, Milan, Bompiani, 2022, 969-971.

[19].    Pope Francis, Catechesis on Discernment, October 5, 2022.

[20].    “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness” (Phil 2:5-7).

[21].    C. M. Martini, “Geremia”, op. cit., 973.

[22].    We cite as principal texts: B. Lonergan, Insight. A Study of Human Understanding (1957) and Method in Theology (1972).

[23].    Cf. C. M. Martini, “Filosofia e dialogo”, in Fondazione Carlo Maria Martini (ed), Ascoltare la storia. Il progetto Archivio Carlo Maria Martini, Milan, Centro Ambrosiano, 2015, 10; Id., Preghiera e conversione intellettuale, Rome, AdP, 2007, 165-172.

[24].    B. O’Leary, “Ignatius of Loyola, Everyday Mysticism and Contemporary Culture”, in Civ. Catt. English Ed, March 2022.

[25].    Papa Francesco – C. M. Martini, Il vescovo, il pastoreop. cit., 45.

[26].    Ibid.

[27].    Cf. Id., “Il valore sommo dell’interiorità”, op. cit., 229.

[28].    Id., Non è giustizia. La colpa, il carcere e la parola di Dio, Milan, Mondadori, 2003, 106.

[29].    Cf. C. Casalone, “Sant’Ignazio e l’ascolto della Scrittura”, in A. Fabris – M. Fidzio – R. Roux (eds), Carlo Maria Martini. La Scrittura e la Città, Lugano – Siena, Europress FTL – Cantagalli, 2021, 65-67. The full audio version is available on the foundation’s website: www.fondazionecarlomariamartini.it/intervista-a-don-luigi-melesi-cappellano-del-carcere-di-san-vittore

[30].    Ibid.

 

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