Rimini, Italy, Aug 27, 2012 / 10:59 am
When Father Luigi Giussani died in 2005, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told the mourners at his funeral that "the centrality of Christ" in the life of the founder of Communion and Liberation gave him a particular "gift" for "deciphering correctly the signs of the times" in a difficult age "filled with temptations and errors."
"Yes, I am convinced that Don Giussani has been a gift of the Holy Spirit for this past century," agreed Father Ignacio Carbajosa Pérez of Communion and Liberation during an Aug. 23 conversation with CNA. "After all, it was a century with the danger that faith had nothing to do with reason."
The 45-year-old from Madrid was only a teenager when he first met Fr. Giussani during a visit by the Italian priest to Spain. But the impact the priest had was instant.
"For me the most striking thing was to hear this man with this love for my humanity," he remembered, "finally, to find someone who knew very well what is my humanity and then looked upon it in a sympathetic way."