Gaspar’s prophetic voice
Our founder, St. Gaspar, whose feast we celebrate this month, offers us guidance on how we might be a prophetic voice for our church and our world. Gaspar stayed loyal to the church but spoke his mind, even if it challenged the institution.
For example, in response to the gangs causing chaos in Sonnino and the surrounding countryside, the government wanted to destroy the town. According to Mario Spinelli in his book, “No Turning Back,” “While Sonnino is being demolished to the ground under the blows of the pickaxes, along with the dreams and hopes of its people, Gaspar could not keep silent any longer.”
The saint wrote to Pope Pius VII to offer his services to confront the problem of the gang violence at its source. “He was the pope who meekly put up with the abuse of Napoleon,” Spinelli writes, that led to Gaspar being imprisoned for civil disobedience. But the pope “adhered to Gaspar’s line and repudiated the party of violence, repression and of the law of an eye-for-an-eye.”
The pope listened to Gaspar’s plea, and he gathered his community “to convert the hearts and minds of a distrustful and disoriented people; to offer both the Christian outlook and the possibility of a social recovery based on work, on honesty, on peaceful community living, and on respect for the law.” Armed with the cross, the Word of God, and the passion for the spirituality of the blood of Christ that reflects reconciliation and renewal, Gaspar sparked a social revolution. Five mission houses were founded in the region in the first six months.
But his revolution was not only for those who were victims of the violence caused by the gangs but to the gang members themselves. “He looked them in the eye,” Spinelli writes. “He felt compassion for them because, behind those sullen looks … there was so much weariness, desperation and marginalization, the same as he had sensed in the prisoners in the whole of the Papal States.”
Gaspar’s prison experiences deepened his commitment to the poor, the outcast, those on the margins of society and church. This is seen clearly in his willingness to serve as a mediator “between the brigands and the public forces.” The risk of standing in this breach between the government and those charged as the guilty is a difficult and dangerous place. As Spinelli writes, frequently law enforcement officials “went back on their given word and shot the criminals who handed themselves over and also butchered their bodies under the horrified but helpless gaze of Gaspar.”
This betrayal by the government, according to Spinelli, was not only “an odious and evident injustice” that precluded “the possibility that other brigands would hand themselves over” but it also “discredited and reduced or voided” the work of the congregation and its founder. When an institution is built on the lie of an “eye for an eye,” one is not surprised by the blindness that results.
Where did St. Gaspar find the courage to confront this blindness and continue to speak truth to power? He found it in being grounded in the Gospel. In his Second Circular Letter (1827), Gaspar writes, “The apostolic life is based upon the interior life of the Spirit.” Gaspar realized that unless his preaching was rooted in God’s Word, his words would reflect his own political beliefs or ideology. Unless his words came from his deep encounter with God, they would be a performance instead of a prayer brought to life that lives and breathes in actions of social justice and reform.
When we strive for justice for refugees and reform for a broken immigration system where people are plucked off the street and deported without due process, we speak truth to power. When we challenge existing gun laws where easy access to weapons leads to unspeakable slaughter of innocent children, we speak truth to power. When we stand in solidarity with those who are starving, those whose rights have been violated, whose dignity has been exploited, whose identity has been erased, we speak truth to power.
St. Gaspar proclaimed the truth he heard in his intimate encounters with God in prayer. He read the signs of the times and responded in prophetic, loving service. May we follow our founder’s example and may Christ, in the words of Eucharistic Prayer III, “keep us attentive to the needs of all, that sharing their grief and pain, their joy and hope, we may faithfully bring them the good news of salvation and go forward with them along the way of your Kingdom.”
Fr. Joe Nassal, C.PP.S.
Vice Provincial Director