Montecassino – At 10:30 this morning, in the Cathedral Basilica of Montecassino, the Solemn Pontifical Mass was celebrated for the feast of Saint Benedict of Nursia, principal patron of Europe and founder of Western monasticism. The celebration was presided over by Cardinal Domenico Battaglia, Archbishop of Naples.
Cardinal Battaglia’s homily offered a dense and prophetic reading of Benedict’s figure, outlining his spiritual features with words that, in the quiet of Montecassino, resonated with the weight and urgency of a call. “Saint Benedict,” the Cardinal said, “was a guardian of time and of man. He did not shout the truth, nor did he wave it like a flag, but sowed it through daily gestures,” relying on the silent strength of the Rule, on the grammar of listening, on the patience of the seed.
The Cardinal revisited the Scripture passages proclaimed during the liturgy to show how Benedict was not a theoretician of faith, but a craftsman of humanity—a man who gave rise to a new civilization not through proclamations, but through faithful daily commitment to prayer, work, and fraternity. A civilization born from “a renunciation that becomes a habitable home” and from “a Rule that does not imprison, but frees.”
Among the most striking passages was his critique of the current age: “This is a time for cold blood and tongues of fire. A time to call drones by their true name: remote-controlled executions. To say that ‘collateral damage’ means faceless children.” Words that cut through the liturgy as a thread of accusation and hope. The Cardinal did not hesitate to denounce the complicity of the West in constructing a system that “invests in death as if it were a safe stock” and reignited the burning relevance of the Benedictine witness: “Every missile is a heresy against man.”
The Abbot of Montecassino, Dom Luca Fallica OSB, offered words of thanks. He expressed particular gratitude to Cardinal Battaglia for his presence and the intensity of his homily, as well as to the concelebrants—Most Rev. Gerardo Antonazzo, Bishop of Sora-Cassino-Aquino-Pontecorvo, and Most Rev. Michele Autuoro—along with the priests, religious men and women, and the civil and military authorities in attendance. “The Europe of which Saint Benedict is patron,” the Abbot said, “is built in unity and peace, also through the responsibility shown in caring for one’s land and one’s people.”
Particularly meaningful was the announcement of the beginning of the preparatory journey for the 1500th anniversary of the founding of the Abbey of Montecassino, which will be marked in 2029, a symbolic date that recalls Saint Benedict’s arrival on the mount in 529. Four years, four milestones: peace, light, communion, hope. A path marked by memory and prophecy, by contemplation of the past and a gaze toward the future. The Abbot invited all to pray for this journey and to participate actively, so that Montecassino may continue to be locus iste, a place of encounter between God and man.
f.D.F.
Silere non possum
The Address of the Abbot of Montecassino
I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Domenico Battaglia, who accepted our invitation to preside over this celebration on the solemnity of Saint Benedict, patron of Europe. We thank him for his presence and for the words he shared with us in his homily, with such… I also thank the Auxiliary Bishop of Naples, Monsignor Michele Autuoro, who accompanied him and who also serves as President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference Commission for Evangelization and Cooperation among Peoples. Our gratitude goes as well to Monsignor Gerardo Antonazzo, Bishop of Sora-Cassino-Aquino-Pontecorvo, for concelebrating with us, as well as to the many priests, deacons, and other religious men and women who are present here. A sincere thank you to the civil and military authorities who are with us today, and to whom we are grateful for their service: the Europe of which Saint Benedict is patron is built in unity and peace also through the responsibility with which one takes care of their reality, their land, and their people.
Thank you to the Schola Cantorum and the organist, to the altar servers. A special thank you to all of you who have come here, to the home of Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, to pray with us. And to all of you we ask: please pray for us, for our community, and for all that the Abbey of Montecassino can still mean today and tomorrow in the life of the Church and in our human, civil, and social reality. We also ask you for a special prayer today, because with this very celebration we wish to begin a journey that will lead us, in four years’ time—in 2029—to celebrate the 1500th anniversary of Montecassino’s life. Saint Benedict came here from Subiaco in the year 529. He arrived here, in this place, and we would like to imagine that he too might have exclaimed—as the patriarch Jacob did centuries earlier after his vision of a ladder between heaven and earth, which for Saint Benedict would become the ladder of humility—Jacob’s words: locus iste, “this is the place.” We hope to celebrate these 1500 years not merely by looking backward, but above all by looking forward—to the future, or rather, to God’s future—so that this double gaze, that of memory and that of hope, might illuminate and brighten our present, and help us discern what steps to take, here and now, in this place. Locus iste! Over the next four years, on this journey that begins today, we wish to look first at Montecassino as a place of peace. A peace to be invoked from above, a peace to be built from below, through our commitment sustained by faith in God’s gifts and His grace. In the second year, from 2026 to 2027, we want to reflect on Montecassino as a place of light. Then, in the third year, as a place of communion in fraternal charity. And finally, in the Jubilee year 2029, we hope to see our Abbey as a place of hope.
We therefore desire to undertake this journey in four stages: from peace to light, from light to communion, from communion to hope. We ask you to pray for this journey and to help us live it out, by collaborating and participating in the various moments, events, and gatherings that can give meaning and substance to our efforts and our search. And may all be blessed by God, with the blessing that we now ask Cardinal Domenico to bestow upon us.