The time of Monsignor Edoardo Cerrato
as Bishop of Ivrea, Italy, was marked by fidelity to Christ's message,
which is why Francis retired him as soon as he turned 75.
Fra
Martino, a pseudonym, recalled on GiornaleLaVoce.it (29 December) a
recent meeting with a friend over seventy years old, a convinced
Catho-Communist, who told him that Monsignor Cerrato would leave no
trace "because he never intervened in the political conflicts and no
particular public gestures of his are remembered".
In a Church
where preaching is reduced to a series of indications to improve the
world, where faith is reduced to a social and charitable commitment to
solve the problems of the planet, and where the Ten Commandments are
exchanged for the UN Agenda 2030, there is a total misunderstanding of
Monsignor Cerrato's ministry and of what should be the mission of the
Bishop as successor of the Apostles, writes Fra Martino.
Even
Massimo Cacciari, a famous neo-pagan leftist philosopher, called the
pontificate of Francis, who always speaks of the peripheries, "tragic".
Cacciari asks the question: "What is the point of talking about the
peripheries if the centre is missing?"
Proclaiming Christ in a
context of advanced secularisation, even in the Church, and without
kneeling before the world, was the hallmark of Monsignor Cerrato's
episcopate, writes Fra Martino.
"Precisely for this reason he was totally and prejudicially misunderstood, both inside and outside the Church".
Within
the Church, his implacable enemies belonged to the fringe of the
Vatican II nostaglicans, with their mythical vision of the Council as a
rupture and discontinuity.
Unfortunately, as a result, Monsignor Cerrato took refuge in caution and 'prudence' and even in volatility.
In
his farewell message, he quoted the [hypocritical] encyclical Dilexit
nos (October 2024), in which Francis affirms that "there is nothing to
add to the one redeeming sacrifice of Christ, except to prolong it,
through the Church, through the centuries".
"It seems to us that
this - the return to Jesus Christ, the original and centre of the faith -
is the legacy that Monsignor Cerrato leaves us, with all its
limitations".
This is also the reason why Francis retired Monsignor Cerrato so quickly.
Picture: Edoardo Cerrato © wikicommons, CC BY-SA, #newsQteblpzgzh