Category: ABOUT Antonio Bacci

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Thought for the Day – 17 November – The Infiltration of the Cinema, Radio, Television [Internet]

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Thought for the Day – 17 November – Meditations with Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)

The Influence of the Cinema,
Radio, Television, [Internet]

“It is an unfortunate but undeniable fact, that man often employs new inventions and discoveries for evil, rather than for good purposes.
The gifts of God ought to bring us closer to Him but, too often, they become, through our own fault, the means of separating ourselves further from Him.
Everything is good and not only whatever God has created but also, whatever we, ourselves produce by a proper use of the facultis with which our Creator has endowed us.

“Every creature of God is good,” says St Paul, “and nothing is to be rejected…” (1 Tim 4:4).
These words are still true of the countless inventions of our own era.
The cinema, radio, television, [internet], are essentially good because they are gifts which God has brought into being through the agency of human intelligence and perseverance.
But what use have we been making of them?
Take, for instance, the cinema.
It must be admitted that there are very few films today which are edifying or spiritually helpful.
Most are positively bad and dangerous, especially to certain branches of the community.
Moreover, as Pope Pius XI warned us, in his Encyclical, Vigilanti Cura, on this subject in 1936, many films, which would otherwise be quite harmless, are rendered dangerous because they are interspersed with various kinds of immorality.

Since the greatest evil for a Christian is the loss of God and this inevitably follows, the loss of grace and of the Faith, we must observe the following safeguards in our approach to the cinema:
(1)We must stay away from any film which might represent a proximate occasion of mortal sin;
(2) We must avoid films which are opposed to morals or to the Faith and must see that our families and dependents, do likewise;
(3) We may attend films which are good or merely entertaining.
It is better, however, not to go to the cinema too regularly, for to do so, would be a waste of time and could expose us to unforeseen risks.
In any case, there are many other amusements, preferably open-air, which are much more beneficial to soul and body.”

Antonio Cardinal Bacci

Note: We are definitely capable of updating the wise words of dear Cardinal Bacci to accommodate the current era and infiltration of the above evils into virtually every moment of our lives – on our phones and computers.

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Meditations for Each Day with Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Meditations for Each Day with Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1881-1971)cardinal bacci.jpg

I plan, in 2020, to use Cardinal Bacci’s Daily Meditations in my usual ‘Thought for the Day’.

From the Introduction to his book:

“The frenetic pace of modern life presents a host of challenges for the Catholic who wishes to grow in sanctity.   Distracted by the pressures of modernity, it often leaves him little room for making a profound and serious study of the state of his interior life.
The Catholic Faith is not only to be believed but applied to our everyday life and as St James has said, “faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself” (Js 2:14).
An excellent means of helping a soul interiorise the principles of the Faith and to dispose the soul to greater acts of love of God, is through daily meditation.   This brings us to the present book, written by Antonio Cardinal Bacci, who was one of the most renowned Latinists of the 20th century.

[These Meditations] will aid the reader in exploring the depths of the Catholic Faith and, if understood and prayerfully read, hopefully will help him persevere in virtue, as Cardinal Bacci states:   “The masters of the spiritual life assure us that without the practice of meditation, it is almost impossible for the just man to persevere in virtue, or for the tepid to become fervent, or for the sinner to be converted.” (Med 2 Jan)

What sources does Cardinal Bacci use to compose his reflections?   As a classicist, he approaches the great sources of the ancient world …. he shows his great familiarity with the wisdom of the Church Fathers, especially through the works of St Augustine.   His constant guide is St Thomas Aquinas, whose penetrating reason illuminated by Divine Revelation, probes the profound beauty and mystery of Catholicism.   The Imitation of Christ is another cherished companion, indicating that Cardinal Bacci has made it’s teachings an integrated part of his life.   Of course, the words of Sacred Scripture, spill out on almost every page, giving life to St Jerome’s words, who said, that “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

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Unfortunately, there is not a great deal of biographical information about Cardinal Bacci in English.

Antonio Cardinal Bacci was born in Giugnola, Italy and was Ordained a Priest in 1909, becoming a faculty member and rector of the Archiepiscopal Seminary of Florence between 1910 and 1922.   Due to his reputation as a Latinist – already at such a young age – during the latter part of 1922, he was chosen to work for the Secretariate of the Vatican State.   Made an honourary Chamberlain for Pope Pius XI the following year, he soon earned the great trust and respect of the then Secretary for Briefs, Msgr Nicola Sebastiani.   In this role he composed letters and Pontifical documents in Latin “with pose and prudence … weighing and adjusting thoughts and expressions even to the smallest shades of meaning.”   When Msgr Sebastiani died, Cardinal Bacci took over the Secretariate for Briefs.   During this time he published an Italian-Latin dictionary.

In 1960, St Pope John XXIII made him a Cardinal Deacon and consecrated him as titular Archbishop of Colonia de Cappadocia two years later.   He participated in all the sessions of Vatican II and made an impassioned address to the Council on the use of Latin.

In 1971, he died of a stroke in his Vatican apartment, after having spent nearly 50 years, in direct service to 4 Popes.

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“In writing these pages, I have desired, to do a little good, … first of all for myself and secondly for those who may wish to read and reflect upon them.   I hoped to accomplish something for myself, in that I wrote down these short daily meditations, in order to be able to remember them more easily and to be able to turn to them whenever the opportunity should arise.   Then, on the advice of enlightened friends, I decided to publish them in the hope that they might prove useful to others.

It was my intention to produce an edifying, rather than, an erudite work.   This explains the simple style and the repetition of certain ideas.   I have found it convenient to return to these ideas at regular intervals, in order to impress them more deeply on the mind and heart of the reader.

There are many well-written books of meditation but they are either too long and, therefore, inaccessible to many classes of people, who complain that they have not time to read them, or they are written in an antiquated style, which is not acceptable today. The result is, that many persons, including some who are genuinely holy, never make a meditation at all and this, is a very great loss.

I have done my best to be concise and, at the same time, to offer an abundance of ideas, in the hope that the reader … may derive from them, material for useful reflections and for profitable resolutions.

May God and the Blessed Virgin bless my labour so that it may be the source of good, for many souls, amen.” … Antonio Cardinal Bacci