Italian
Not only borders and territories, but feeling and responsibility: love of country according to Pope Roncalli
ITALY – Last October 11, the feast of Saint John XXIII, patron of the Italian Army, was celebrated. Giovanni Roncalli, a young priest, took part in the Great War as a military chaplain, sharing the fate of his two brothers and of many other young men.
In a letter to his brother Giuseppino, dated December 5, 1917, he wrote:
“Many soldiers, unfortunately, when they hear talk of Country, shrug their shoulders, laugh, or else blaspheme and curse. Not us. We do our duty looking upwards. The men who governed us and govern us do not deserve our sacrifices, but the Country, today in danger, deserves them all. Men pass, the Country remains.”
Simple words, yet full of depth, revealing his clear and spiritual vision: the Country is not made up of the men who govern it, but by the very value it represents — a moral, eternal value that goes beyond selfishness and the errors of history.
And yet, his very life contained a paradox: his father, Giovanni Battista, was an Austrian citizen, born in 1854, and therefore an “enemy” of the Country for which his son was fighting.
What, then, was the Country for the young Roncalli? Is it perhaps the place where one is born? Or where one’s ancestors were born?
The reflection thus becomes deeper: the Country is not only a territory, but a feeling, a choice, a place of the soul.
It is where we choose to live and, if necessary, to die. It is the place where we leave that part of ourselves we wish to remain, even when we are no longer here.
For this reason, the Country has no borders: it is the Country of all.
It is the Country of the man who looks “upward,” as Don Angelo wrote, and who recognizes in every human being a brother.
The message of the Holy Father, the “Good Pope,” invites us to reflect on the universal dimension of love of country — a love that does not close itself within the borders of a nation, but opens to the entire world.
A love that refers to respect for the dignity of every human being, to his uniqueness and to his universality.
