By Gianni Criveller PIME
December 22 was the 75th anniversary of the priestly ordination of Father Angelo S. Lazzarotto of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions [PIME]. The remarkable and infrequent anniversary was marked with a Eucharistic celebration and the cake cutting at the Blessed Giovanni Mazzucconi community in Lecco, Italy, where the 97-year-old missionary resides. Many friends and admirers from Italy, China, and other countries sent him their best wishes. Many people keep asking me for news about him. It is not easy to meet with Father Lazzarotto, due to the visiting limitations at the home for elderly and sick missionaries where he resides. He is also frail, and finds it difficult to hold long conversations. But his mind still works well, and he participated with awareness in the simple celebration in his honour.
Father Lazzarotto was born in Falzé di Piave, near Treviso, in northern Italy, in the Diocese of Veneto, on 14 May 1925. “My missionary choice matured while I was attending the municipal gymnasium of Conegliano Veneto. I was committed to the association of Catholic Action with enthusiasm. We read about the tragic events of the civil war in Spain, with its numerous martyrs and I admired their sacrifice. I also remember the courageous denunciations by our teacher in religion against the anti-Jewish legislation introduced by Mussolini”.
In June 1940, he entered PIME seminary in Treviso at the age of 15. He then moved to the PIME seminary in Genoa, for three-years of high school education. Among his teachers, Attilio Garré, a missionary from China, made a particular impression on young Lazzarotto who, for the first time, was exposed to the story of the Chinese nation. “I also remember the periodic visits by Bishop Lorenzo M. Balconi, the PIME superior general. He was an austere man who still bore the marks of the violence suffered in China. The heroic climate of the missions seemed normal to us. The martyrdom of our China missionaries, in Kaifeng and Weihui in 1941 and 1942, was part of our missionary imaginary.”
The young Lazzarotto returned to seminary in Treviso as a teacher. On 22 December 1947, at the age of only 22, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Antonio Mantiero. He then studied mission theology in Rome and got to know the Focolare movement, which became a fundamental source of spiritual inspiration in his life.
My missionary choice matured while I was attending the municipal gymnasium of Conegliano Veneto. I was committed to the association of Catholic Action with enthusiasm. We read about the tragic events of the civil war in Spain, with its numerous martyrs and I admired their sacrifice. I also remember the courageous denunciations by our teacher in religion against the anti-Jewish legislation introduced by Mussolini
Father Lazzarotto arrived in Hong Kong in 1956 and worked there until 1965, when he was elected to the General Directorate of PIME. In Hong Kong he did a lot: he became director of Catholic Centre, He initiated a strong friendship with Bishop Francis Hsu, the first Chinese bishop of Hong Kong, and a great intellectual promoter of inculturation of the Catholic faith in Chinese culture.
From late 1970s, Lazzarotto was a pioneer in the first contacts with Catholics in China. Together with leading figures such as the Catholic politician, Vittorino Colombo, and the intellectual, Franco Demarchi [University of Trento], he contributed to the re-establishment of dialogue between the Catholic Church and Chinese authorities. He returned to Hong Kong in 1980 and, together with then Father John Tong Hon [now cardinal], and two Maryknoll missionaries, he founded the Holy Spirit Study Centre, for decades the best informed centre on the Catholic Church in China.
Father Lazzarotto is among the members of the playfully so-called “gang of four”, or missionaries – sinologists who from the 1980s developed contacts and collaboration with the Church in China. They were pioneers after the Cultural revolution. The other three are the Belgian Father Jerome Heyndricks of the Scheut missionaries; the French Father Jean Charbonnier of the Paris Foreign Missions Society; and Polish Verbite Father Roman Malek, who died prematurely on 27 November 2019.
It was Roman Malek himself who suggested compiling a Festschrift [a commemorative book] dedicated to Father Lazzarotto, which was presented to him on the occasion of his 85th birthday. The volume was published by Monumenta Serica [SVD, Germany], and includes 28 essays by important international scholars and the tabula gratulatoria [list of best wishes] signed by 63 personalities from all over the world. On that occasion, I listed his publications: there were no less than 417 titles. Since then Father Lazzarotto, a tireless and generous missionary, published other books, essays and articles. The number of his titles today exceeds 450.
The Festschrift was presented in Milan on 15 May 2010, the day after his 85th birthday, at a conference dedicated to him entitled, The door of friendship. We idealistically linked Father Lazzarotto with Matteo Ricci, the founder of the Chinese mission, whose 400th death anniversary, was universally remembered a few days earlier [11 May 1610]. When Ricci was declared venerable last December 17, it brought him joy.
Some time later, on 25 November 2015, the Catholic University of Milan conferred the Matteo Ricci award on Father Lazzarotto for his contribution to dialogue with the Chinese people and culture. Friendship, a fundamental theme of today’s missionary thought and style, characterised the missions of both Father Ricci and Father Lazzarotto.
In recent years, my conversations with Father Lazzarotto, in person and by telephone, are rather brief, by reason of his fragility. He has only words of trust in the Lord Jesus, to whom he has offered his life. His mission is prayer and self-giving, waiting, as he often told me, for the final encounter.
