Bologna, August 1st, 2016,
Dearest Pope Francis,
with devotional affiliation, let me give you an advice for your high ministry. Listening to
your fine speech to young people during the vigil of the WYD, I thought the good exhortations
would remain largely sterile. After many enthusiastic WYDs, secularity among young people
(millennials) has considerably increased.
It takes little to realize that exhortations are only partially effective among those who have
taken Christian life seriously on a path of holiness. Certainly in the WYD, about a third of the
young people belong to some movement, and for them the WYD becomes a good job. For others,
they are days of collective enthusiasm and then life is more or less equal, with a sense of belonging
that does not even come to the socio-sacral, and with so much secularist signs as free sexuality.
I think that they end up with words similar to these: and now return to your homes and
commit yourself to following Christ in a journey with a Pentecost charism, following Christ truly,
in primary communion with your brothers. Alone one cannot follow Christ nor sincerely strive for
Christian sanctity as a free gift from the Holy Spirit. In movements or parishes, wherever three or
more Christians want to wake up and live the Gospel, it is required a minimum of institution and a
great deal of charisma: new commandment, inner life, apostolic urgency.
In the most diverse and diverse ways, but always with a weekly meeting reserved for those
who want to live the Gospel without discounts, with personal prayer (prayer, psalms, rosary, etc.)
with a monthly and one or more annual retreat. With a camp school or similar activities during
summer. With apostolic, cultural and/or service assignments. In full unity. Where shepherds
minimize the institution to foster communion.
You should ask your bishops and priests to serve your holiness and charity, and your
apostolate, in unity of intent. You must become yourself Christ’s followers: tell them that certain
juvenile pastoral programs are not enough to overcome various Christian needs for fear of losing
them. There they gather some young people, but then they get tired. A half Christ does not serve
anything, just like getting married in half, calculating.
Such a call would have made people thinking about their way of participating in the Church.
There are many ways to belong, but only that of “high measure” embodies the Gospel. And it is not
the exhortation that leads to living the Gospel, but the primary charismatic membership. And the
bishops would be heard by young people themselves, realizing that the institution must always be at
the service of communion. It would have been a real reform of the Church.
New evangelization needs countless cores of primary charismatic communion to expand.
There is no other way to change the course of the Church surrounded by secularity. All
exhortations, documents of the magisterium, catechesis, attention to the needy, conferences, or
books, etc., do not curb the advancement of secularity, which uses more and more aggressive
consensus networks against faith.
Founders, but also ideologues, terrorists, the evangelical communities, and thousands of
sects, demonstrate the great amount of followers that those who know how to propose a primary
communion can reach. But of course, only at a high level, of Pentecost, one can speak about the
Gospel. The Novo millennio ineunte of Saint John Paul II presents a clear pastoral program: a
universal call to holiness and spiritual communion.
What makes sterile this wonderful document of the magisterium is the lack of the generational act,
the concrete proposal that offers a path of holiness. Must start with others, with clarity, freedom and
choice without discounts. Love does not ask for discounts. The Gospel is beautiful and easy too, but
only for those who commit to it, who want it all (as a gift of grace, not presumptuously elitist), and
this can only be achieved in communion with others. For centuries the choice of a living gospel has
been linked to religious vows. Now the movements have shown that choice is related to baptism, as
long as it is in primary communion.
It is necessary that the institutional church serve the charismatic communion, that in each
parish spring centres of charismatic communion, paths of holiness, and Christians who love
themselves with one heart and one whole soul. It is not hard, it is only necessary to understand. It is
not about excluding someone: parishes will always be open to all, whether in liturgical service, incatechesis, or in assistance. But the Gospel must not be lowered to the level of common religiosity
to all men. It must be possible to choose to follow Christ, with others who rely on me and vice
versa, in full unity of intents, both spiritual and apostolic, with a family life superior to the natural
family, inter alia, in order to live the marriage as Sacrament of the Kingdom.
I wrote further explanations on the above-mentioned topics in two booklets: ” Nuova
evangelizzazione e comunione primaria in parrocchia” and ” Comunione carismatica in parrocchia
” by Edizioni Cantagalli.
In full filial communion, I pray for your intentions,
Don Ugo Borghello
Via Sant’Isaia 79