Interview with Andrea Turazzi Bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro: Sunday 26 September the voters of the smallest and oldest republic in the world will decide whether to legalize abortion

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INTERVIEW WITH ANDREA TURAZZI, BISHOP OF SAN MARINO-MONTEFELTRO: SUNDAY 26 SEPTEMBER THE VOTERS OF THE SMALLEST AND ANCIENT REPUBLIC IN THE WORLD WILL DECIDE WHETHER TO LEGALIZE ABORTION

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«So one cannot consider himself a Catholic and then, for instance, fail to recognize that human life is sacred from conception. A believer must contemplate God's creative action. The conceived is always within a relationship, a special covenant with the Creator, he has an immortal soul".

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Andrea Turazzi
Bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro

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Heart to Heart talks (the heart speaks to the heart), phrase taken from the letters of Saint Francis de Sales, Episcopal coat of arms of H.E. Mons. Andrea Turazzi, Bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro

ASunday's referendum 26 September voters will decide whether the Republic of San Marino must liberalize abortion, conforming to the dominant mentality in many Western countries and indeed risking overcoming them for extremism (you see here the analysis of the jurist Giacomo Rocchi), or if, on the other hand, it must continue to be an example in the protection of the unborn, the generations of tomorrow. As already told by the psychotherapist Adolfo Morganti in an interview with the Compass, the campaign for the no to the referendum question saw the strong mobilization of the Catholic laity. But the local Church is also doing its part, encouraging citizens both to defend the baby in the womb and to help mothers in difficulty. The New Compass Daily interviewed the bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro, S. AND. Mons. Andrea Turazzi.

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Monsignor Andrea Turazzi, her in a recent homily, about the abortion debate, he called the Republic of San Marino to question its founding values ​​and its project for the future. Can you tell us about these values?

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First of all, we must look at the creature that has just begun its adventure. Every man has the right to live. This is the right that precedes all others. So, defending the unborn child is much more than defending an abstract principle, because it is welcoming of a person. Alongside that of the child there is the perspective of the mother, both the one radiant for the arrival of a new creature and the worried one, anxious because of difficulties: we must ensure all possible accompaniment to her. It must not be left to itself, but its difficulties must be taken to heart. Who comes to abortion, often, he does it because there is no help, also economical; we must ensure that never again, in a society like ours, a life is not born for similar circumstances.

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In Declaration of citizens' rights and the fundamental principles of the San Marino legal system it is read: "Every mother has the right to community assistance and protection". It finds only the referendum question, essentially, sever the ties between women and the community that could really protect them?

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Of course. The referendum campaign, especially in the last few days, it is taking on rather lively tones but it should be an opportunity for a leap of awareness, of responsibility, a favorable moment of reflection for the whole community. There is a child who has to be born, mom to help, and this means that we need a company that takes a stand. I am happy that the firm no to abortion is increasingly accompanied by words and gestures of attention towards women. And this is not only the task of individuals but also what the state must do. Moreover, in San Marino there is a demographic winter that is even more noticeable than elsewhere, because we are a small company. The people need clarity and the constructive dimension must prevail in the debate, beauty and the gift of life. But I think there is this in many, and I hope that those of other convictions will also ask questions.

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In addition to mothers with difficult pregnancies, we need to help mothers who have aborted to embark on a path of reconciliation with God. Accompanying groups are active with you in this regard?

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To San Marino, in addition to the Pope John XXIII Community and Caritas, The Welcome to Life Service has been operating for a couple of years, offering beautiful testimonies that collect life experiences of girls and boys from our communities. In a few days we will know the result of this referendum, we hope for a good outcome, but in any case, woe to throw in the towel of the commitment to the life of the unborn, for the proximity to mothers in difficulty, etc.. We will have to work even harder, whatever the outcome. This battle is affecting Italy and all of Europe, therefore this small state challenges the conscience of millions of people.

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Also because he is one of the few who resist in the field of the defense of the unborn. It should be referred to as an example of civilization, instead the progressive press paints it as "backward".

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Look, I was encouraged by the Pope's intervention on the plane returning from his trip to Slovakia, in which the Holy Father again pronounced clear words against abortion. And this must also make all Catholics reflect.

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What do you mean?

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Here too there are Catholics committed to social issues, on human rights, on the custody of the common home. And on the other hand, there are Catholics who are more attentive to the safeguarding of ethical principles, non-negotiable. The 'furrow' between these two souls, da November, sometimes it's not that deep; however, I felt the duty to say to both of them that the Gospel of God's love for man, the Gospel of the dignity of the person and the Gospel of life are one and indivisible Gospel. So one cannot consider himself a Catholic and then, for instance, fail to recognize that human life is sacred from conception. A believer must contemplate God's creative action. The conceived is always within a relationship, a special covenant with the Creator, has an immortal soul.

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In San Marino there is a strong mobilization of the Catholic laity in defense of life from conception. It seems that the wish of St. John Henry Newman is fulfilled, asking for a strong laity ...

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In the Republic of San Marino, in this campaign, we favorably witnessed the birth of two secular realities. The Council of lay aggregations, which brings together a dozen ecclesial groups; and the opposing committee, the One of Us Committee, which expresses no to abortion based on anthropology and the sciences. Indeed, it doesn't have to be a battle between Catholics and non-Catholics, but the occasion for the awakening of civic conscience, that is, values ​​founded on a correct anthropology and which are recognizable as good by anyone.

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This question, as the Law already 194, cut off the father. What do you think?

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The woman, clearly, carries the burden and fatigue of pregnancy, but dad can't be pushed aside.

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It is also an attack on God's creative Wisdom?

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A phrase from Sacred Scripture comes to mind, in the book of the prophet Jeremiah: «The word of the Lord was addressed to me: “Before forming yourself in the womb, I knew you, before you came out into the light, I had consecrated you; […]”» (Gives 1, 4-5). These verses are testimony of God's love. So my invitation is to be present, to participate in this campaign in defense of nascent life and to do so with the spirit of the gift, as an act of friendship. I wish there was no verbal brawl. And on our part, we need to give answers that transmit Catholic teaching in its entirety. Promote the protection of the mother, help for the family, a policy more attentive to family realities ... The development index of a company is not evaluated only with the economy, but above all it is measured with respect for the true rights of the other, starting with the frail and the unborn child.

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The referendum will take place on 26 September, liturgical memory of the medical saints Cosma and Damiano. Perhaps…

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Look, he is telling me a beautiful thing, I didn't think about it. We have a parish dedicated to Saints Cosma and Damiano, which are called "anargiri”, because they didn't want money. They certainly call everyone to safeguard life and, in particular, the doctors, who take the Hippocratic Oath. Sunday morning I will celebrate in that parish, but before…

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Tell us.

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Wednesday 22 September [today, ed] we will make a Rosary, which will be broadcast on YouTube starting from 17, promoted by the Pope John XXIII Association. I will sing the Rosary for the nascent life. Who can, join in prayer.

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Pennabilli, 23 September 2021

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© Service made by Ermes Dovico on the magazine

The New Compass Daily,

director in charge Riccardo Cascioli

edition of 23 September 2021

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6 replies
  1. Father Gabriele CP
    Father Gabriele, C.P. says:

    I am a Passionist priest, the last time I touched on the topic of abortion during one of my sermons, in the Campania province of Naples, with relative words of condemnation and referring with scruple only and nothing more than to the magisterium of the Church, I found myself in the sacristy with a small group of furious women shouting … “we don't agree!”, and those of all five who agreed least were two catechists. I asked the parish priest how it was possible that two abortionists could be catechists, he shook his head and I, leaving, I shook my head more than him, saying to myself: poor catechists, poor parish priest, but above all poor Church!

    Monsignor's interview is beautiful. Andrea Turazzi Bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro.

    • Giancarla Paoletti
      Giancarla Paoletti says:

      Dear Father Gabriele C.P.

      she put her finger on me with these words of hers, even if I remain with a doubt: It's the catechists' fault, it's the bishop's fault, it's the parish priest's fault … whose?
      I don't know the bishop who speaks this way in this interview, From the way he speaks, however, I don't think he would allow divorced catechists, accompanied with a new partner and children in happy coexistence, to teach catechism to first communion children, as happened to me with my daughter. Catechists who, regarding abortion, stated that concrete cases must be evaluated because there are situations in which …
      I do not think so, from how he speaks, that if he had known that the parish priest replied to my complaints that I am retrograde and that the church has changed, he would have said “Bravo!” to this parish priest.
      Unless his speech is completely dissociated from his action.
      And I conclude: and all the divorced and remarried parents of the children took communion, the parish priest responded to my complaints by telling me …”she hasn't read Amoris Laetitia”.

      • father ariel
        father ariel says:

        Dear Giancarla,

        I will answer your question because I know Bishop Andrea Turazzi well, above all, I think I know how you would have acted in the cases you reported, also because his speech has always corresponded closely to his concrete actions, without any discrepancy. With great meekness he would have told the parish priest that the educators, despite being sinners like all of us, they must have a lifestyle suited to the catechism they teach, not a public life lived in open conflict with Catholic doctrine and morality. Then he would remind him that the post-synodal apostolic exhortation love joy did not at all allow the divorced and remarried to receive the Holy Eucharist and in this regard the provisions given by the Holy Pontiff John Paul II in the Familiar Consortium (n. 184), never modified to date.

        I am not meek and I believe that authority should be applied in a rigid and harsh way with certain subjects – for their highest good, is intende -, I would have made the parish priest you described black from head to toe. But thank God the Church was careful not to make me a bishop, and he did very well, because in these times of “hairy mercy” and of “dialogue without listening” I would absolutely not have been suited to hold such an office, having the serious first “capital vice” to believe that the Church is a hierarchical structure that is based on the principle of authority, this would have made me a completely inadequate bishop for our Church new course. Or as Father Divo Barsotti said when preaching the spiritual exercises to the Roman Curia under the pontificate of Paul VI in 1971:

        «The Church has a coercive power that comes to it directly from God and which it cannot fail to exercise».

        Try to imagine a priest telling his bishop «I think that …» and in response the bishop replies to him: «What you think is irrelevant, you have to do what I command you and that's it, not what you think".
        At the very least there would be a general uprising of the clergy, starting from those parish priests who feel like pontiffs, emperors and kings.

        But know that today, for a bishop of any diocese, it is very difficult to manage your own presbyteries. And if we don't start from this we risk not understanding certain serious problems. So let me try to explain with an example: if when I was a teenager (I state that I have 58 year old) the parish priest or deputy parish priest of the parish church I attended had been called on Monday by the bishop's secretary and summoned for Wednesday morning, they would spend two sleepless nights thinking to themselves what the bishop had to say to them. They would appear at the hearing with their best cassock on and would greet him by bending their knee and kissing his hand, then they would wait for the bishop to open his mouth and speak.
        It can happen today – even frequently – that the bishop calls one of his presbyters and he doesn't even show up, she sends him an email and he doesn't respond. Good part, when they show up, they arrive dressed in civilian clothes, they give the bishop a handshake, if not a pat on the back, then they start talking to them, or they interrupt the bishop while he speaks by saying «no, Personally, I really don't agree.".

        This would be enough to ask: what ecclesial and ecclesiastical education is given today in our disastrous seminaries which, as I've been saying for years and years, they should be completely rethought and reformed?

        another example: more than ten years ago it happened that while I was sitting with a brother in a living room of the bishop's office the bishop entered, upon his entrance I stood up from my chair and bowed with my head, the brother remained sprawled in the chair while the bishop – who was looking for him – standing he spoke to him. When the bishop came out I told the brother: «When the bishop enters and above all when he speaks to you, you have to stand up. The next day a priest who believed himself to be master of the diocese, therefore of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, he complained to the bishop that I had the audacity, the presumption and arrogance of claiming to teach education to priests.

        With these freshly painted pictures, the antiphon and the training situation of the clergy are clear to her? It's clear to you why I keep repeating that our seminars, nicknamed by me “pretify”, I'm a real disaster?

        From this educational disaster, or rather deformative, parish priests like the one you painted can come out, with all that goes with it, including divorced catechists brought back with other men who affirm on the subject of abortion: «… there are situations in which …».

        I finally make her smile: when i, priest and theologian, I told a parish priest that I was willing to teach catechism to the kids who were preparing for Holy Confirmation, he rolled his eyes and answered me: "No, It is not possible, the catechists would be disappointed, if a priest taught catechism!».

        And with this I think I've told you everything.

        I understand that this is not a nice way to console, but I guarantee you that I have known and know much worse.

        Pray for the Holy Church and pray for the health of the souls of the priests.

  2. Don Francesco Messina
    Don Francesco Messina says:

    Says S.E. Mons. Andrea Turazzi

    «So one cannot consider himself a Catholic and then, for instance, fail to recognize that human life is sacred from conception. A believer must contemplate God's creative action. The conceived is always within a relationship, a special covenant with the Creator, he has an immortal soul".

    We are always fewer (priests included, alas!) to understand that this statement is completely obvious and that a bishop could not say otherwise, today, however, to make public statements of this kind it is necessary for a bishop to be truly endowed with heroic virtues.

    This is why I was truly touched by this interview, because they are clear and clear words that have not been heard since the time of Saint John Paul II.

    • Don Paolo M.P.
      Don Paolo M.P. says:

      Don Francis,

      I am a priest in an Emilian diocese, I have known “Don Andrea” when he was parish priest in a parish in Ferrara (He is originally from Ferrara), I went to confession to him when I was a seminarian, an authentic holy man of God and consequently he can only be a holy bishop.

  3. Don Angelo Rossit
    Don Angelo Rossit says:

    Listening in these times to the words of a Bishop who expresses himself in such a calm but decisive way, without penalty of any misunderstanding or ambiguity, It truly lifts the heart of every presbyter.

    My sincere devotion to His Most Reverend Excellency.

Comments are closed.