In the Nineteen Seventies he started his first very tough contacts with what remained of the Catholic Church in China. Today, Father Angelo S. Lazzarotto, PIME missionary visitor of the home in Rancio di Lecco, reaches one other enviable milestone: that of 99 years!
In a easy and acquainted ceremony, PIME missionaries at the moment celebrated the 99th birthday of Father Angelo S. Lazzarotto, a pioneer of relations between Christianity and China. Father Angelo lives within the residence of the senior missionaries in Rancio di Lecco, which was the birthplace of Giovanni Mazzucconi, the primary martyr of PIME.
Father Angelo is, contemplating his age, in cheap well being. Communication with folks is relatively restricted, resulting from progressive deafness and the fragility of his energy. Long conversations with him are usually not potential, however he stays mentally alert, lives the moments of group life and dedicates himself to prayer. When he was in a position to categorical himself higher than now, he repeated that he felt prepared for the definitive name from the Lord, to whom he consecrated his life as a missionary, priest and good friend of China.
Originally from Falzè di Piave, Treviso, Father Lazzarotto was ordained a priest in 1947 and arrived in Hong Kong in 1956. He carried out many companies in PIME and for the Church, however is finest recognized for having been, ranging from the Seventies, a pioneer of the primary contacts with Chinese establishments and Catholics. In 1980, along with John Tong (now a cardinal) and two Mary Knoll missionaries he based the Holy Spirit Study Center in Hong Kong, for many years essentially the most knowledgeable middle on the Catholic Church in China.
Father Lazzarotto is among the many members of what was jokingly outlined because the “gang of 4”, that’s, of that small group of missionaries – Sinologists who, ranging from the Seventies, started the primary very tough contacts with what remained of the Catholic Church in China, after the darkish years of communist persecution and the cultural revolution. The “gang” additionally included the Belgian Jerome Heyndricks of the Scheut missionaries and two now deceased missionaries: the Frenchman Jean Charbonnier of the Foreign Missions of Paris (Mep) and the Polish verbite Roman Malek.
In 2010, on the event of his eighty fifth birthday, 28 students from everywhere in the world contributed to the creation of a Festschriftor a quantity in honor of Father Angelo, revealed in Germany by Monumenta Serica and solemnly introduced on the PIME Center in Milan.
With his tireless and beneficiant dedication, Father Lazzarotto produced round 450 titles together with books, research and articles, largely devoted to the theme of the connection between Christianity and China. Inspired by the instance of the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, he has at all times adopted the trail of friendship and dialogue, with out ever failing in his want to share the nice of the Gospel of peace with the Chinese folks.
Mission isn’t just motion and exercise: there’s a dimension of the spirit and the guts. The mission that Father Angelo now consciously lives is that of prayer and self-giving. We want him good well being, serenity and peace and we give him an appointment for subsequent 12 months, so as to have a good time, if the nice Lord so needs, the milestone of 100 years.