Among the bishops of Italy currently serving as Ordinaries, Archbishop Luigi Negri stands out for his trenchant commentary and prolific writings (including a multitude of articles and around 30 books) on a wide variety of topics, always with the object of defending a conservative Catholic world view and its presence in the public square and the world of culture. A close student and collaborator of Msgr. Luigi Giussani, founder of Comunione e Liberazione, he was appointed Bishop of the small diocese of San Marino - Montefeltro in 2005 and then Archbishop of the small Archdiocese of Ferrara-Comacchio in 2012. He is already well-known to Traditional Catholics for his interventions in favor of the Traditional Latin Mass: his telegram to Pope Benedict XVI thanking him for Summorum Pontificum, his denunciation of episcopal opposition to the same, and his 2013 homily to Traditional Catholics with its precious words of encouragement and praise.
A friend and reader of Rorate has kindly presented us with this translation of an article written last month by the Archbishop and published by La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana. This is a bishop who knows how to fight, who knows how to denounce the French Revolution (and its Catholic apologists) in the same breath as the Islamist menace that he does not fear to name either.
By Luigi Negri, Archbishop of Ferrara-Comacchio
02/28/2015
Ancient Statues and bas-reliefs were toppled down by bearded men who then proceeded to destroy them by using jackhammers. This is the latest video released by ISIS in Mosul. It is the continuation of a campaign against remnants of the past. Islamic State militants have been blowing up places of worship, feeding flames with books taken from libraries, and destroying a part of Nineveh’s city walls, the ancient Assyrian capital in the outskirts of present-day Mosul. These images, spread by a Twitter account used by the Caliphate, show the methodical destruction perpetrated in the rooms of what looks like a museum in Mosul. During the five-minute long video, we notice museum labels in Arabic and English describing exhibited artefacts. It is because of this that we have recorded the comments of Mons. Luigi Negri, the Archbishop of Ferrara-Comacchio.
I hope that the technological means which our society uses – and oftentimes abuses – can vividly preserve for future generations the images of such terrible scenes of barbarism which we have been able to see “live” in different parts of the world. This is rage, much more demented than barbaric, against the artistic expressions of one of the greatest ages of world culture, which have been handed down with devotion and respect from one generation to another, from one culture to another, from one civilization to another. And so culture and civilization are not exclusive, unlike the case of this horrendous ideology, even if it is religious. Culture and Civilization are inclusive and even know how to incorporate cultural and historical realities not born from the limitations of their proper milieu; thereby becoming all the more enriched.
