16 March 1949 – 16 March 2017: a prophetic idea
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«When we start to dialogue again with people of the past, the first question we ask is: why do we do this? Every life conceals a mystery and something unresolved that would never allow us to say the word, “end,” if negligence does not intervene.
It is the daily experience with those we care for most, so one can imagine how natural the oblivion is of the unknown who now belongs to history. (This is what Giovanni Santambrogio wrote about Igino Giordani in the newspaper, “Corriere della Sera.”)
These are thoughts that are very touching for those who have known Igino Giordani, and had spoken to him; those who met him daily in his writings – always perceived his lively presence up to the point of observing with admiration, that with each passing day Igino Giordani was really not subject to that merciless law of “oblivion” like the other companions of his: Fr. Luigi Sturzo, Alcide De Gasperi, Giorgio La Pira, and Giuseppe Donati.
And history punctually offers us various occasions in which to discover the traces he left in the life of the Church, of Italy, of Politics....
Like that on 16 March 1949.
Speech of Igino Giordani in the Parliamentary session of 16 March 1949
In April 1949, 12 European countries stipulated the Atlantic Pact, an agreement for mutual defense in case one of the signing countries is attacked from outside. What urged this Atlantic Pact were the fears of a possible military action of the Soviet Union in Europe. The discussions, therefore, naturally assumed a strong ideological characteristic. Also in Italy the Parliament was a stage of vehement political oppositions. Let us recall the speech of Igino Giordani with regard to the Atlantic Pact and the war, which even got to the point of conceiving a completely new idea like the “International Europe” – worthy to be revived and studied – and which could have undertaken the role of being a source of unity.
«I would start from a principle: every war is failure of Christians … you very well wrote on the walls of the offices of the Italian Prime Minister: “no to war.” And we agree with this. And you also wrote: “land, not war.” We perfectly agree to this too. Too much land has already been assigned as war cemeteries: it would be good to save it and give it to our workers as farmland.