thirty years after his murder 
I wanted to remember the figure of Vittorio Bachelet thirty years since his martyrdom at the hands of the Red Brigades.
A man who knew how to be a reference point with their lives and the civil and political commitment, a Christian able to live their faith in history, in the service of love in personal relationships and in building a common city.
Tomorrow will begin the annual conference in Rome on "
V. Bachelet: Witness to Hope" in the presence of the President of Reppubblica.
As an association we have scheduled a meeting fromazione and prayer on this "Giant" of the Catholic Church. The story occasionally gives us some real giants. One of these was definitely Vittorio Bachelet, a brave and tenacious witness to hope. A manufacturer of the future. Remembered by those who knew him as a person from the mild character, who never did miss the firmness in the choices, the labor of life, a serene look in looking at the world and its anxieties. Certainly belonged to the generation with their dreams, their own earnestness in the study, their commitment to others contributed significantly to the reconstruction of Italy after the rubble of war, and then to the great excitement that will lead to the Second Vatican Council.
I thought it was very beautiful, deep and siginificativo Osservatore Romano published the article signed by Giovanni Bachelet, son of Victor. The entire public
sure to please everyone.
My father
Giovanni Bachelet University of Rome La Sapienza
"The Lord said to Gideon:" The people who are with thee are too many, because I put the Midianites into their hands, before Israel could brag to me and say: My hand has saved me. Now proclaim before all the people: Everyone is afraid and trembling, go back '"(Judges 7: 1-3). With my mother and my sister chose these verses, very dear to my father to accompany her photo. Gideon, according to the instructions of the Lord refers to home thirty-two thousand men, and shall take only three hundred. With them, armed with pitchers, trumpets and torches - and great courage, founded on the word of the Lord - breaks night in the field of the Midianites, who, in panic, flee in disorder.
It took courage and faith to accept a thirty-three, by John XXIII, and thirty-eight, by Pope Paul VI, the vice-president and then president of Catholic Action, with the formidable mandate to implement the council in Italy . To enter the new liturgy and the Bible in every family and every parish. To transform the Catholic Action in a laboratory of the Church of tomorrow, an unusual combination of internal democracy (with leaders elected by members and non-renewable for more than two terms) and serene loyalty to the pastors (who also play a role in the new statute important in the election). To focus on the Gospel and Christian formation, restoring the political commitment - and sports, and other good things for which the Catholic Action had hitherto played a valuable work of substitution - the autonomous responsibility of the laity. To turn the page than those that John Smith had called "the days of omnipotence," the price of a painful crash diet numerical and financial.
It took courage and confidence that the Lord had Gideon. To "be attentive to the reality of modern man without closing the Pharisee nell'alterigia (...) and not be party factions, not organization of power, but salt and light of the world," as in 1966 the diocesan Presidents , helped him with the full agreement with the Pope and the national assistant, Bishop Franco Costa, inspiring a whole generation of priests and lay people love freedom and democracy and, after the war and the Resistance, the Republic, the Constituent Assembly and the Constitution. Only a president and an assistant both agree in the distinction of tasks between clergy and laity, as refractory to any bias and favoritism, the miracle might be able to accompany the emergence of different points of view, physiologically associated with the advent of associative democracy, with the "continuous growth of a style of brotherhood and freedom, an effort of construction," that my father recorded with joy in his last speech Catholic Action in 1973.
Many of these things I understand better later. Then, between elementary and high school, Don Costa was for me a Genoese priest with whom he went to the mountains along with other families, a bishop who was joking and happy, for example, prevented us children kiss his hand, improvising a hilarious, unexpected arm wrestling. I knew it was national chaplain of Catholic and that there was a council in the implementation phase, but in that group of mountaineers to change the language from Latin to Italian and to introduce three readings, the sign of peace or the guitar, just as things seemed natural that my transition from elementary to middle to high school, only to grow up I realized that, elsewhere, the same steps the council had been lived with ease and sometimes with less resistance.
only from large, thanks to the stories of mom, I learned for example that Bruno Paparella, Secretary General of Catholic while my father was president, often for lunch at our house, known to us kids, especially for his jokes, not was really excited about the new way to reconcile. Obviously in those years, behind the fraternal and peaceful way to reconcile the Catholic Action (and with it most of the Italian Church), there was a lot of faith, but also a lot of listening skills, understanding with the shepherds, humility in accepting a progress made of small steps. The delivery was to take with you all, and gradually transfer without tears the entire people of God "privileges" formerly reserved for the clergy, and until the council, available at most university graduates or Catholics, as the hour of prayer, the reading and discussion of the Bible, understanding and full participation in the liturgy Eucharist. A sense of humor often drove my father to smile instead of cry, and anxiety about the slowness in implementing the directives of the Council. He smiled when an old priest concluded his homily with a postscript by surprise, totally unrelated to the readings of the day: "I am the wife for the priests do not see it! Praised be Jesus Christ." He smiled softly, remembering a friend Bishop that "democracy is not enough to be right, but we also need to have it from 51 per cent of voters. "She smiled even when staring at a plenary meeting of the Italian bishops conference of their own on the eve of an election date, although the distinction between the political community and reconcile the Church after centuries of throne and altar - he said - it takes at least several decades to change their habits ...
on the centrality of expertise and knowledge on the legitimate plurality of views in many fields of human endeavor, the clear distinction of roles between the political community and the Church Gaudium et often was based "religious choice" of Catholic . "When the history of the plow, turning deeply to dig deep the soil of Italian society that what was important? It was important to throw good seed, "said Dad.
Therefore
Church, and with it the Catholic Action, were to focus on its primary mission: to evangelize and re-evangelize the rapidly changing world. But this choice does not way implies the return of the laity in the sacristy and contempt for politics: on the contrary, was based on
respect for their autonomy and on appreciation of its unique role , so that even Paul VI called it "the highest form of
charity ".
character and vocation, But my father was very fond of the university and Catholic action, less politics and the Christian Democrats. Of course voted for that party, convinced that "the few who look like us are there," but I think that, while not imagine that four years later would cost him his life, in 1976 Dad has lived a candidate in the "new Democrats" and the Moro Zaccagnini more as a duty than a pleasure. He was elected to the City of Rome and soon after the Parliament appointed him to the Superior Council of Magistrates, where he was elected vice president. In those years, some politicians still brisk and active, had coined the slogan "neither the state nor with the Red Brigades", there were those who plotted in the shadows, including lodges and bombs on the trains. Spending time with the judiciary required courage. As it was seen.
Don Abbondio argued that courage, one, not if you can give. Cardinal Borromeo shouted at him asking, "Do not think that (...) there are those who give it to you without fail, when I ask? Do you believe that all these 'millions of martyrs were of course courage?" (The Betrothed, xxv). My father was brave and strong in the Lord, like Gideon, Bonhoeffer as he mentioned last meeting of 1973: " I believe that God, in every difficult situation, grant us so much strength to strength we need it. He did not the grant in advance, so that we surrender ourselves totally to him and not in ourselves. All fear for the future should be overcome with faith . "This faith has appeared to us children, from infancy, the prayer of the parents, Mom and Dad together. In their prayers appeared to be a basic need like food or sleep : ancient and modern prayers, psalms and the rosary and Compline, Italian and Latin. In the morning, evening, before eating, traveling. In one of the sweetest memories of childhood are Mom and Dad knelt by my bed and, prevail before sleep, I hear the words of one of their evening prayers: Oremus pro pontifice our Ioanna ... since then we prayed for Paul to John Paul, and, today, Frank, we loved and we love the Pope because as he once said Dad, his name is John or Paul, but why it's called Peter.
few days ago, Mom told me that he had found a book at home that in thirty years had never noticed: Faith and the future, Pope Benedict wrote as a young man, a few years after the end of the council. Two passages were underlined in pencil by my father. The first said: "Only he who gives himself
creates the future. Those who simply want to teach, just change the other, remains sterile . The other track, the last section titled The Future of the Church, said: "The future of the church (...) will not be by those who provide recipes (...) or instead adapt to the passing moment (.. .) or criticize the other and consider themselves an infallible measure (...) declare or surpassed all that man requires sacrifices (...) Again, as always,
the future of the church will be the new saints " . The faith, love and obedience are unfortunately incomprehensible to many of those who look to the history of the Church from the outside and think they see us in just a giant game of chess. Dad was rather convinced that "Christians
frank and free can live in the Church of today and tomorrow obedience and peace, just as Angelo Roncalli, priest, bishop and Pope free and fair, because he had faith in his strength, but in the spirit that guides the Church. "I am convinced, too, and, thirty years after the death of my father, I ask the Lord for me and my children, for the laity and the priests of my church, faith and courage, obedience and peace ".
From "L'Osservatore Romano - 12 February 2010."
