A Prophet of a Church Looking to Those Far Away

Giovanni Battista Montini was appointed Archbishop of Milan on November 1st, 1954. After taking possession of his cathedral on January 6th, 1955, he would remain in the archdiocese until 1963, when he was elected pope, taking the name of Paul VI, shortly after the convening of the Second Vatican Council.

As old global orders crumbled under the impact of world-changing events—China’s Cultural Revolution, the assassination of Malcom X, the Vietnam War, the youth protest movement, the Cold War—it was the dawning of a new era that would spare no aspect of society. The transformations sweeping culture, customs, politics, labour, and consumption were shaking the foundations of a tired status quo and anachronistic boundaries. Such deep-seated change raised new challenges for the Church, calling on it to focus on more worldly matters.

Milan was effectively a breeding ground of new and different world views, not all of which were especially ethical.

The diocese Montini “took over” was a city growing at unprecedented speed. The economic boom left nothing in Milan untouched, bringing with it unregulated and often chaotic urban growth and triggering the spread of new social conflicts, as new value systems took root through which to understand and experience labour rights and the trade union movement, as well as civil rights and democratic life. 

Even Montini appeared genuinely interested in understanding the new world taking shape in the city, its industrial logic, and its industrial relations. An interest that was especially reflected and pursued in the archbishop’s relationship with the Milan Fair Board.

The archbishop’s “Milanese” legacy features a small collection of speeches and sermons connected with the Milan Fair and the fairgrounds. They include extemporaneous words (1959, 1961, 1962), seven homilies (delivered at services for fair workers and exhibitors from 1956 to 1963), and two speeches given in secular venues (at the Ambrosian Library in 1956 and at the fairgrounds in 1960, for the unveiling of a statue of St Ambrose).

Insightful in their lucidness and never circumscribed to the context, his speeches were nuanced in a variety of ways—from his enthusiasm for the industrious working world, to caution at the all-too-human idea of being able to build a heaven of happiness on earth, to an appeal to the social dimension that all forms of profit should contemplate and to transcendence as the ideal elevation from the material to the spiritual dimension.

His intent, of course, was to evangelize the modern world unfolding before him. Yet his words also convey an authentic desire to engage in constructive dialogue with Milan’s industrial society in those feverish years of prosperity. His was a frank and honest effort to draw together the contradictory forces apparently dividing the city and guide them towards a common moral and spiritual destiny, by restoring the religious dimension in the life of capitalists and workers.

Archbishop Montini’s speech at the unveiling of the statue of St Ambrose at the Milan fairgrounds is undoubtedly deserving of a special place in memory. 

Mr Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen,
once again I have been given the honour of visiting the Milan Fair and admiring this magnificent emporium, where Milan, Italy, and almost one hundred nations exhibit the most accomplished, the most useful, and the most modern products of which the intellect and labour are capable, offering them to the free and stimulating trade that seeks to spread new prosperity across the world and unite peoples in the peaceful bonds of commerce.
[…]

But one thing especially satisfies me greatly this year and adds a new delight, so befitting on this Easter Sunday of holiness for the joys of the spirit, offering me the pleasant surprise of worshipping and blessing a most singular guest, this statue of St Ambrose, which […] stands here as a symbol of the Milanese people, who not unduly call themselves Ambrosian, as a sign of a civilization that from human and Christian Rome takes on an incomparably universal character, and as a monument to a tradition that for over fifteen centuries has injected into European and world history a vital contribution of thought, art, and action.

[…] which is that this figure here, so singular as it is, is by no means out of place. Austere and intent, it looks on the feverish activity that surrounds it with sympathy, with admiration, with confidence, almost as though St Ambrose himself were keeping watch and encouraging it to become part of a design beknown to him, a concert whose unexpected harmonies he is preparing. Almost as though he were protecting it from any discord that might trouble it, from any mishap that could turn it towards a vain or tragic end. And almost as though he were reconciling in so much human toil the hope of a merit that is not consumed with time and the protection of a divine goodness, revealer of the secret treasures that we are discovering in the universe […]. 

Thus, familiar and friendly is this paternal figure, which seems to me to announce herein a presage of truly great importance, a felicitous sign of a solution to one of the most troublesome and pressing problems of our time. The problem is this: that of an accord between the Christian faith and the religious spirit with the technical-scientific mentality of the modern world.
[…]

It is clear that the rent that has been torn between our religious tradition and our vast and amazing conquest of nature cannot last […]. It is similarly clear that a new dawning of spirituality, in keeping with the needs of civilized and exasperated modern souls, is now awakening us all […] and impatient is the need for a new understanding of all this knowledge and this experience of the natural world, which ultimately leads us to posit in man, in his life, in his social phenomena, and in his destinies, the centre.

[…] But the solution to the problems, which the restless modern world unconsciously calls for, and which technical and social progress itself, of which this fair is an amazing sample, makes so acute and implacably urgent, has come to seem not just necessary, but possible. It lies in giving this city of a thousand artificial lights a new ray of bright and divine light; […] it lies in rebuilding the bridge between Christ […] and man.

[…]
This is the presage, this is the beginning. It is here, where inventions and discoveries, formulae and findings of all sorts document the work of yesterday and today and give a glimpse of the progress of tomorrow; it is here that a superior novelty is announced and inaugurated: the encounter of the brand new world and Christ eternal. […].

The symbol of that encounter is Ambrose. Its promoter and protector is Ambrose—a Roman on Milanese soil, the magistrate who become bishop, the scholar who became master, one of the highest types of civilized man, who became a saint; the genius loci, our spiritual representative.
[…]

A new peace, a new prosperity, a new civilization shine in the sky of history.
This Milan Fair is an auspice, Mr Chairman.
Should it be so, no greater glory could befall it.