San Marino. Don Mangiarotti: “We are the result of the choices made over time”
We receive and publish a press release from Don Gabriele Mangiarotti
In the face of what is happening, we often ask ourselves, without being able to give a convincing answer to the problems raised.
So we can ask ourselves: “What country have we become?” and do not realize that the answer is simpler than we foresee: “We are the fruit of the choices made over time”.
I remember what happened in 2016: “Soon in the San Marino high school there will be an automatic condom device. The request to the Captains Regent had arrived from the citizens on the first day of April and yesterday the Instanza d’Arengo was discussed and accepted in the Great and General Council. Instance number 18, to be precise, “for the installation – it states – throughout the territory, and in particular in the offices of secondary schools, of automatic condom dispensers”. Accepted with 23 votes in favor, 15 against and one abstention.
The Secretary of State for Education, Giuseppe Morganti, presented it in the Chamber. “The upper secondary school – he said, not hiding his perplexities – has only one location and is close to the pharmacy. I don’t think there is a specific need, unlike more large territories. If, on the other hand, there is a need for a more private location for the purchase, then this can be a real need. But honestly I would not take a position on this issue »”. (Il Resto del Carlino)
And, the following year, the news of the realization of the vote of the CGG: “Following up on the specific Arengo request, an automatic condom dispenser was installed in via Donna Felicissima, between the Pharmacy and the entrance to the Upper Secondary Schools . A non-random day was chosen for the symbolic ribbon cutting, December 1st, that is, for World AIDS Day. On this day, a series of meetings concerning education in affectivity and sexuality were held at the High Schools by ISS doctors and experts, in which it was explained how the condom is, at the moment, the most effective tool in protecting against sexually transmitted infections. (Radio and television of San Marino)
Perhaps, if we ask ourselves about the meaning of this political choice, implemented with a wide margin of consensus, with an understanding of “what country we have become”. A country that has achieved that, in exchange for a lesson on affectivity and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, it is possible to offer children aged 14 to 18 those tools that make sexuality not a responsible act of love, but a game that even the school should be able to advise, or at least tolerate.
Love and sex are not child’s play, to be allowed with precautions. Love and sex are a very high form of realization of man and woman, to be educated seriously and not with false moralisms or irresponsible permissiveness.
Furthermore, we would rightfully avoid that the much heralded about abortion which – Ça va sans dire – cannot be considered “an instrument of limitation and birth control”, is the justification of any sexual act that for carelessness loads us with the weight of a unwanted pregnancy. Let us also educate ourselves on sexuality and affectivity, but we do not think that this exempts from considering every act that is linked by its nature to the transmission of life and the communion of a man and a woman who love each other to be binding and fascinating.
Already John Paul II, speaking of human love, asked to know how to distinguish between uti and frui, that is, between using and enjoying. We need such teachers, and we will learn that freedom which so fascinates our thoughts and our hearts. “From this arises the urgent mission of educating to discern between” uti “and” frui “, that is, between a relationship with things and people solely based on functionality – uti -, and the credible and reliable relationship – frui -, rooted courageously on the beauty of gratuitousness, mindful of what Augustine writes in his “De catechizandis rudibus”: “Nulla est enim maior ad amorem invitatio quam praevcome amando” – There is no greater invitation to love than to precede loving “, the Pontifical reminds us Culture Council.