Giovanni Battista Bergamo is a 35-year-old Italian priest, a native of Venice but a resident of Taiwan, a city with less than 1% of Christians, with a religion based on Taoist and Buddhist syncretism, which also includes the worship of various local deities and ancestor worship typical of Chinese culture. Se left for China to take part in the great mission of evangelization of the country and is now incardinated in the diocese of Kaohsiung. Despite the distance - not being able to leave the country because of COVID - in order to better form himself as a priest and serve the Taiwanese people, Giovanni has been able to study online the first year of the Licentiate in Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, thanks to a scholarship from CARF - Centro Academico Romano Foundation.
God's ways are infinite. Many times we plan a type of life, a job, but suddenly something happens that turns our plans upside down and, with time, we discover that it was better this way because we realize that the will of God, who, in a mysterious way, has acted in our existence, has taken us to where we are precisely where we are comfortable: it is our vocation.
In connection with Taiwan, Giovanni tells his story.
My father, Maurizio (who went to heaven in 2018) and my mother Annalisa, both Venetians, grew up on Murano (the island of glass). Catholics since childhood, they married young in the early 1970s. My father was an architect and university professor. Together with my mother they attended the FUCI (Italian Catholic University Federation) in the post-conciliar period. In that rather turbulent period for the life of the Church, the dispute in the academic environment was very strong and Christianity in a certain sense quite politicized. For this reason, my parents, in the genuine search for a renewed faith, decided to live their Christian faith in simplicity in the parish near our home, precisely Santa Maria Formosa.
In this parish they listened to the catechesis of the Neocatechumenal Way. Together with a heterogeneous group of faithful they formed the first Neocatechumenal community in Venice.
How many of you are in your family?
My parents had 5 children (I am the youngest). My siblings are married, and I have 15 nieces and nephews! My brother Pietro with his wife and 5 daughters are missionaries in Belgium. My father has always continued his professional and academic life in Venice, but at the same time, he carried out catechetical and evangelization activities in other cities of Veneto. In addition, he volunteered his professional help for the design of churches and seminaries in mission territories (Kazakhstan, Georgia, Taiwan, Croatia, Canada, etc.).
What attracted you most to this new ecclesiastical reality?
Above all, the fact of finding in the Camino a serious and profound response to their most genuine aspirations, in personal and community contact with the Word of God, in a participatory Liturgy and a life of community celebration. They had a profound encounter with the Lord and their lives began to change: very large families were born with 8, 9, 10 children; some went to evangelize, some even abroad, to Germany, Croatia, etc.
A family totally dedicated to the Church and its mission. And a family that prays is an instrument of evangelization for others.
Yes, really... I grew up in this ecclesial environment and I have wonderful memories of when I was a child and we would gather to celebrate the Eucharist with my parents' community. Also, the Way initiates families into some very beautiful forms of domestic prayer that I have experiencedThe family celebration of Sunday Lauds, through which parents pass on the faith to their children.
The beauty of Christian life and the signs of faith that the Holy Spirit aroused in the Neocatechumenal Way have created a desire for emulation in our generation. So much so that, despite the difficulties we know of today's increasingly de-Christianized and secularized society, and despite the fact that the population of Venice is aging and less numerous, there are now in my parish alone 10 Neocatechumenal communities, most of them made up of the children and grandchildren, who in turn marry, have large families and pass on the faith to their children.
In my old Venetian community, the fifth Neocatechumenal community of the parish of Santa Maria Formosa, There are currently about 30 members, many young couples with more than 30 children in total and 3 missionary priests.
Giovanni Battista Bergamo is the youngest of five siblings. His parents jTogether with a heterogeneous group of faithful, they formed the first Neocatechumenal community in Venice. He grew up in the Neocatechumenal Way and has wonderful memories of when he was a child and we gathered to celebrate the Eucharist with his parents' community in a very genuine and happy atmosphere.
"After Confirmation, in the period of adolescence, I also listened to the catechesis and began the Camino with my small community, formed mainly by children of the families of the first community. Since that time I have always participated in the celebrations, followed by a group of lay catechists and the priest in charge. Together we participated in the World Youth Days with the Pope, from Rome in 2000 to the last one in Poland and other experiences of evangelization, as shown in the picture", he says.
But, like all young people, it is time to find your own dimension of spiritual and vocational development.
Faith is a personal experience and I would never have thought of finding myself on the other side of the world at the age of 36 as a priest. After my Confirmation, in my adolescence, I started the Camino with my small community, formed mainly by the children of the families of the first community. Since then I have always participated in the celebrations, followed by a group of lay catechists and the priest in charge. Together we participate in World Youth Days with the Popefrom Rome in 2000 to the last one in Poland and other experiences of evangelization.
He had a very active life, in his teens: I attended a public school and excelled in many subjects; I played soccer and basketball; I liked music, I played the trumpet... My life was basically the normal life of a middle-class Venetian boy. My project was to succeed with my skills, to have a good family, to be a teacher, a bit like my father. I studied philosophy in Venice, in a totally atheistic environment, dedicated to the autonomous search, through human reason, for a truth in which God has no place.
At a certain point I had everything I thought would bring me happiness: I had a beautiful girlfriend and we were preparing for marriage, I had many friends, in college I was brilliant and among the best, whoever knew me saw a successful person. But inside I felt empty, lonely, full of complexes and substantially unsatisfied.
You went through a moment of despair...how did you get home?
At that time God allowed my father to have a serious illness.I found myself without a concrete answer to death and pain, in spite of all my successes and my philosophical studies. I entered a sad and desperate period, when life seemed to me basically a swindle. I took refuge more and more in my studies, in my projects, but it seemed to me that nothing made sense anymore. My emotional relationship also collapsed and for a while I found myself without the strength to do absolutely nothing.
Thank God I never left my community, where I felt even more loved in such a dark period. Although I had been in the Church since I was born, perhaps it was only at that moment that I was able to truly hear the proclamation of God's gratuitous love for me, not because of my merits but because of his goodness. The Word of God spoke to me deeply and a new life and the possibility of loving and forgiving was reborn in me. Then I resumed my studies, I graduated; I was able to reconcile with my parents and serve my father in the last part of his life: this fills me with joy.
...and you decided to give yourself to God.
Yes: I felt that I was willing to give God the availability to do whatever his will was, even to enter the seminary and become a priest. In 2011, after a time of discernment, I entered a Redemptoris Mater Seminary for the new evangelization.
In the Neocatechumenal Way, the candidates to the priesthood do not enter the seminary closest to their diocese. The seminary of destination, then, is drawn in a moment of prayer in which there is a time where, by extraction, a seminarian is called to go to a certain city drawn on a map, any city in the world where there is a Redemptoris Mater seminary to help the local diocese in the new evangelization.
And I was sent by extraction to the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Our seminary, by the will of H.E. Cardinal Peter Shan, then Bishop of Kaohsiung, who signed the decree of erection, is destined for the service of the Chinese people in any part of the world.
I imagine it must not have been easy....
Not at all: As soon as I arrived in Taiwan I had to learn Chinese. In the midst of a thousand difficulties, the experience was beautiful because in this weakness you feel the Lord helping you; you see the Chinese who, although they do not know the gospel, come close to you, help you and in the end are moved to see people who give their lives for them.
The basis of our formation is precisely the Neocatechumenal Way as an itinerary of Catholic formation for an adult faith. Therefore, even in the seminary I was able to continue the Way in a local Neocatechumenal community. Now my brothers and sisters in the community are no longer my childhood companions, but young, older and married Chinese. I was able to know their sufferings, enter their homes, prepare the Word together with them, celebrate with them and get to know their families. Now I feel them as brothers: it is really moving to experience the communion and unity that the Holy Spirit gives even to people so culturally and linguistically distant.
A very good theological and pastoral formation is also necessary for such a large and difficult mission....
In addition to the study of Chinese and theology, our seminaries include a time of itinerant missionary experience outside the seminary, accompanying priests, catechists and families on missions around the world. I have been in Hong Kong and China for approximately one year. It was a beautiful time in which I was able to see the poverty but also the love of God and the power of the proclamation of his Word and the sacraments.
On July 6, 2019, I was ordained a priest by H.E. Peter Liu, Bishop of Kaohsiung. I served for one year in an aboriginal parish, first as a deacon and then as a presbyter. Finally, I was sent to the seminary where I am now, as prefect of studies.
In the Neocatechumenal Way, the young men, candidates to the priesthood, do not enter the seminary closest to their diocese, nor do they enter a seminary of a certain nation, chosen by their superiors. The seminary of destination, then, is chosen in a moment of prayer in which there is a time when, by extraction, a seminarian is called to go to a certain city drawn on a map, any city in the world where there is a Redemptoris Mater seminary to help the local diocese in the new evangelization.
"And I was sent by extraction to the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Kaohsiung, Taiwan," says Giovanni. Our seminary, by the will of H.E. Cardinal Peter Shan, then Bishop of Kaohsiung, who signed the decree of erection, is destined for the service of the Chinese people everywhere in the world."
And last year you enrolled in the degree of Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, where several companions of the Neocatechumenal Way are being formed, but also dozens of priests, seminarians, religious men and women from all over the world from different religious orders or realities of the Catholic Church.
A marvel. That is why in our seminary, together with the other formators and leaders and in communion with Bishop Liu, we feel it is important to provide priests with a serious formation as close as possible to Rome and that is why I am continuing my theological formation at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, where many of us are having the possibility of a excellent teaching and with a personalized and familiar follow-up.
Me, in particular, together with the bishop and my colleagues at the Redemptoris Mater Seminary, we are immensely grateful for the help that CARF has given us.Every day I remember my benefactors in our prayers and in our Eucharistic celebrations!
Support provided by CARF benefactors for the formation of priests it is not so much the student but above all the diocese and the people of God that the priest's service will benefit....
...And with a lot of work to do! Taiwan is an island with a population of about 23 million people. Christians make up less than 1%. The most common religion is a Taoist and Buddhist-based syncretism, which also includes the worship of various local deities and ancestor worship typical of Chinese culture.
We are here serving the Diocese of Kaohsiung, announcing the Gospel and forming small Christian communities that undertake this itinerary of adult Christian formation that is the Neocatechumenal Way. The communities here in Taiwan have the particularity of being composed also of many unbaptized catechumens, coming from pagan, Buddhist or Taoist families. This time of initiation helps them to have a concrete experience of Jesus Christ: the contact with the Word, the Christian love that is lived in the community, changes their lives little by little and gives them a profound witness to the power of the resurrection.
When they arrive at baptism, which is administered by immersion during the Easter Vigil, the sacramental seal of baptism finds a soil already tilled, plowed and ready to bear beautiful and lasting fruits of Christian life. Today in our communities we see young Chinese people in Christian marriages. with many children, different testimonies of faith in the face of illness and death: a light that shines in a society still in darkness.
It has been a pleasure to hear your story. For our university community this year of pandemic has been very difficult, a challenge... But it has also been very positive to see how you students have made the great effort to continue your formation online. We are very happy to see God's work being fulfilled through our work and in the lives of young priests like you.
The same for me! In difficulty, God always does something new... The Lord is doing a new thing. work for the new evangelization and we are spectators. We do not back down because we have seen how good the Lord is and to do his will is the most beautiful thing. Taiwan is a launching pad for a great mission that awaits the Church, if it is true that, as St. John Paul II said, the third millennium will be the millennium of the evangelization of Asia!
Gerardo Ferrara
BA in History and Political Science, specializing in the Middle East.
Responsible for the student body
University of the Holy Cross in Rome
