Don Nino Minetti, Superior General Emeritus, retraces
In this interview he talks about his long years spent in the Opera Don Guanella, carrying out ministries of great responsibility.
edited by Don Salvatore Alletto
THEDecember 8, 1935, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. 90 years ago, you opened your eyes to the world. What memories do you have of your parents?
IFirst of all, I thank the Lord for opening my eyes to life on such a solemn and significant day. And I thank the Virgin who, from that day on, has taken me under her maternal protection. Of my parents, Angelo Raffaele and Lucia Cisaria, I have only childhood memories, and unfortunately, very few of them. "Your mother was proud of you," my family would tell me, after the Lord took her from me forever in 1943, when I was eight years old.
outgoing superior general,
and Don Nino Minetti, newly elected on July 22, 1993
Personally, I only remember the embrace we shared in the hospital, on her deathbed. It was so intense and enveloping that I couldn't even look at her face and thus capture her last photograph in my memory. I still feel my father's care and tenderness, even though he sometimes couldn't overcome the stern mannerisms or expressions he acquired during his very long military service: thirty-seven years, almost eight of which were in advanced war zones.
What was one of your favorite games as a child?
I didn't have many to choose from. It was the immediate post-war period, and due to a lack of resources, we relied on our imagination, playing primitive and rudimentary games. Sure, I played a lot of soccer, but in front of my parish church, in the middle of a pine forest, with a ball made of cloth.
When did you first feel the call within you to give yourself for God and for others?
After the first three months of my entry into the Guanellian minor seminary on Via Aurelia Antica in Rome, in 1948. It was the culmination of a period of very careful discernment, undertaken under the guidance of my spiritual director, Father Luigi De Bernardi, a young Guanellian priest, for whom I have always been deeply grateful. I chose the Holy Mass of Christmas Eve to say to the Lord: "I will never leave you again."
Above all, is there a Guanellian brother who had a greater impact than the others on your journey towards the priesthood?
In the early years of my long formation (I was 14), I had great admiration for the "first hour" brothers, who had lived and been "influenced" by the Founder. I knew almost all of the longest-serving ones. I was particularly struck by Father Mazzucchi, who very often loved to visit the seminaries. He spent entire seasons in Rome (usually winter), and then the "meditation" he dictated daily was assured: calm tone, half-closed eyes, elevated eloquence, and invariably Guanellian topics. In addition to this "gentle and legendary" father who made me glimpse the Founder as the saint of charity, there was a second brother who showed me firsthand what it means to be a Guanellian priest, Father Attilio Beria: an exemplary religious, a beloved pastor of souls, he was also a skilled catechist, an excellent professor of ecclesiastical history, a much sought-after lecturer, and the foremost and unsurpassed scholar of the Founder. I met him in Chiavenna (Sondrio) during my theological studies, from 1959 to 1963. I met him again in Rome: he had been appointed private librarian by Pope Paul VI. I was close to him when the Lord called him prematurely in 1983. Even today, his memory is a source of encouragement and consolation to me.
What do you remember about the years of the Second Vatican Council?
Always thinking about the Council, the question instinctively arises: why were we, even though we were theology students, not drawn to such an important event? Yet the preparatory period for the Council lasted three years, from January 1959 to October 1962. This is why, arriving in Rome after my ordination in October 1963 and having to remain there as an educator in the minor seminary and as a student at the Pontifical Gregorian University, I immediately devoted myself to understanding what was happening. I remember having difficulty settling in. On the one hand, Rome seemed like a beehive. A myriad of priests and bishops milled through the streets and squares of the Eternal City. Journalists crowded the press centers. Theologians hurried from one meeting to the next, discussing behind the scenes which strategies to adopt. The trattorias were always full. On the other hand, there was a flurry of publications, conferences, and conventions, in which imprudent judgments and rather shocking interpretations often prevailed.
Tell us some stories about the Council event.
One event enchanted me: witnessing the three thousand two hundred bishops emerge from St. Peter's Basilica at the end of each Council session. From a distance, it resembled a gigantic beehive from which, at different speeds, the bees were detaching themselves, venturing in the most disparate directions. I learned that, after two years of preparatory work, seventy-five drafts had been prepared, amenable to further development through discussion in the Council hall and, of course, with the help of the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile, I looked to Pope John XXIII, and I loved that he was so optimistic, direct, simple, and human. I remember meeting some of the theologians who were consultants or experts at the Council and began to admire them: Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger, Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar. They worked for their respective bishops, preparing their interventions at the Council. By the end of 1963, the Fathers had voted on the first constitution and the first decrees. And once voted on, they were also published. I immediately bought the constitution which concerned the liturgy, the Sacrosanctum Concilium of 1963, and I read it. I remember saying to myself: "The revolution has been made!" I waited with a certain anxiety for the constitution on the Church, the Lumen Gentium It appeared in December 1964. I didn't read it immediately. From the comments, I realized that some change would also be introduced in the Church's vision: from a hierarchical Church to a Church of communion. Of course, I still vividly remember the magnificent closing ceremony of the Council, on December 8, 1965.
The Don Guanella Work immediately became your second family. Many years of service in authority, twelve as Superior General. What was your greatest joy as Superior General? And the most difficult moment?
It's true, I've been a member of the Guanellian Family since October 15, 1947, so for seventy-eight years. I joined when I was twelve. And my years in the service of authority have also been considerable: thirty years, from 1976 to 2006, and in particular from 1993 to 2006 as Superior General. It wasn't easy for me to take on the role of Superior, especially after giants like Father Olimpio Giampedraglia and Father Pietro Pasquali. Immediately after my election, I was overcome by thoughts of discouragement, typical of those who believe they are not up to the task entrusted to them. The Congregation needed a figure who could guarantee continuity with the past and, at the same time, a figure who could lead it into the new millennium now upon us. And it didn't end there, because it also needed to be accompanied in its phase of promising expansion in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I confess that these thoughtsIn the first few months after my election, the sera had, on occasion, become a nightmare. I freed myself only when I fully realized that I had to identify with the person of the Founder, whom I represented: "From Christ I know what God is like. He is Love and Providence, and therefore from him will come the inspiration and the guidance of the path." Slowly, I regained serenity, trust took over, and finally the joy of taking action. Several months had passed since my election as superior. This was the most difficult, but also the most joyful, moment of my superiorship.
You were the one who gave great impetus to studies on Don Guanella. Why are history and roots so important to you?
First of all, for a principle of historical research that says: "If you want to know a person, dig into their roots." For us, even more so: the Founder is not just anyone. Let us also remember that we were obliged by the Council, in the decree on the renewal of religious life, Perfect Charity of 1965, to carry out this research, considering it one of the "general principles of a suitable renewal". I recall almost verbatim: after following Christ as the supreme rule, the updating of religious life involves "the continuous return to the sources and the primitive spirit of one's own institute. Therefore, the spirit and the purposes proper to the Founders, as well as the sound traditions, are faithfully interpreted and observed: all this constitutes the patrimony of each institute" (n. 2). Something that the Congregation has scrupulously taken care of over the years, immediately establishing the Guanellian Studies Centre in 1976, approving the renewed Constitutions in 1986 and between 1988 and 2023 publishing six volumes with theComplete Works of the Founder, in addition of course to the various series of studies that accompanied the research.
Where is the Church going?
I don't feel qualified to pass judgment on the path of the Church in the contemporary world. I make my own the answer to the same question, addressed to Pope Benedict XVI: "If one studies the history of the popes, one will soon realize that the Church has always been a net into which both good and bad fish end up. The Catholic conception of the Church, and of the leadership roles within it, excludes the adoption of an ideal Church as a parameter, and instead requires one to be ready to live and work in a Church besieged by the forces of evil" (Peter Seewald, Benedict XVI. A Life, Milan 2020, p. 1203).
Do you have any regrets?
Yes, for not always having given time to listen to my brothers in my role as superior. Many of them are no longer with me. I take this opportunity to apologize to all of them, living and dead.
Is there anyone you miss and would still like to have with you?
My sister! If I look back at my life and exclude early childhood, I've only spent time with her during the holidays, a time too short to become intimate. I had resolved that, as the years passed and I no longer had any significant commitments, I would seek more opportunities to welcome her into our home or visit her more frequently. But the Lord took her from me in three months, with a sudden illness, in 2009. I mourned her, and for a while, without resignation. From what I was told, she was the image of my mother. At which point, instinctively, I said to myself, "So I've been orphaned twice, in childhood and now in old age, both delicate moments in life."
Are you afraid of death? How do you imagine the afterlife?
Of death, no, I'm not afraid! But of the pain that will presumably lead me there, yes. I'm trying to prepare myself for death, living in such a way as to pass the final test that will admit me before God, in the knowledge that all life tends toward this encounter.
How do you imagine eternal life?
An endless journey into the consolations of God.
What would you say today to a young person who wishes to give his life to God and to others in our Congregation?
I would echo what one of our older brothers, who came to visit us in the minor seminary, told me: "The task of every priest is to seek a successor." Then, looking at me with a certain captivating tone, he added: "Can I rely on you? I will work hard, both on earth and in heaven, to obtain this gift from the Lord."