In the heart of the Vatican, the Apostolic Library and the Apostolic Archives (known until 2019 as the Vatican Secret Archives) together form a single cultural breath: two lungs of the memory of the Church and of humanity. The mission of custodian of both institutions today falls to Archbishop Giovanni Cesare Pagazzi, incumbent of Belcastro, appointed by Pope Francis last March 2024 to the dual position of Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church.
Born in 1965, Pagazzi is a theologian and academic with a long career, having taught Ecclesiology, Christology and Anthropology. In 2022 he was called to serve as secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, before receiving episcopal ordination in November 2023.
In his new assignment, the archbishop now finds himself at the head of two extraordinarily important realities that - as he himself tells in this interview for Omnes - are not only places of conservation, but “bridge crossings”where nations, even those far away or in conflict, are united by a passion for knowledge.
How have these first months of service as Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church been for you?
-These have been exciting months. I have found myself immersed in the great river of the history of the Church and of humanity, gathered between the banks of the Apostolic Archives and the Apostolic Library. I have the good fortune to work with two teams of the highest professional quality; I am learning a great deal from them.
My predecessor, Monsignor Vincenzo Zani (Titular Archbishop of Volturno), had spoken to me about the great importance of the Archives and Library also from the diplomatic point of view, through the so-called cultural diplomacy. I had not imagined that it would be so important. I did not expect the Library and the Archive to be places where very diverse nations, united by their interest in culture, converge. Some of them, outside this space, are even enemies. The Archive and the Library are a crossroads of bridges.
In a time of conflict, crisis and disorientation, can culture open paths of hope?
--As I was saying, culture can open paths that are still unimaginable in other fields. It is no coincidence that, since ancient times, the Church has been one of the greatest cultural promoters in human history.
Furthermore, Christians believe that the Father, the Son and the Spirit have not acted alone“.“yesterday”But also today, now, in this magnificent and dramatic world. If God is here, acting, why should we despair?
On the other hand, the wisdom books say several times that whoever considers that yesterday was better than today is not a wise person.
How can we train ourselves to recognize these signs also in our present?
-He said: “train us”. We must train ourselves to recognize the signs of hope, even the smallest ones. A kind of physiotherapy is needed, a repeated exercise - not without effort - that restores to us a lost ability: the ability to see the grain in the midst of the weeds, the strength that allows us to admit that even from the enemy we can learn something. Perhaps that is why Christ asks us to love him.
Returning to the Library, it is often perceived as a chest of the past, yet it is the custodian of a heritage that serves to illuminate the present and the future. However, it is the custodian of a heritage that serves to illuminate the present and the future. What then is its living function today?
-Rather than representing a reduced image of the Library and the Archive, define them as “.“chest of the past”is a distorted understanding of the relationship between what we call past, present and future.
Today is unimaginable without the supports and stimuli that come from yesterday. An everyday object, such as a spoon, is inconceivable without primitive metallurgy. A space mission could not be planned without the contribution, still operative, of ancient Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Arabic and pre-Columbian mathematics.
The past is contemporary with the present and accompanies it. There is a synchrony between all generations. A sort of “communion of saints”The works and good thoughts of those who preceded us are still active; therefore, we are indebted to them.
Thus, the Library and the Archive are not mere places of custody of the past, but spaces where, in a more evident way, the synchrony of all generations vibrates. A synchrony that can be perceived even when today or tomorrow you use a simple spoon.
Digitization projects and openness to scholars from all over the world make both institutions a laboratory of universal cultural dialogue. Is this also a sign of hope?
-Of course. However, the Library and the Archive are like the heart. It works thanks to two opposite movements: diastole, which expands and opens, and systole, which collects and closes. Never one without the other.
Excessive closure would make the Library and the Archive asphyxiating. An indiscriminate opening would transform them into a market where everyone takes what they want, without understanding that they are living organisms that cannot be mutilated. Otherwise, the document or book found would cease to be part of something living and would become an amputated limb.
What help can the Church offer in a current scenario that oscillates between technological enthusiasm and global fears?
-Above all, we should not be afraid. If the Lord has placed us precisely at this time, it means that he has full hope in our success.
Just as past generations faced the cultural, social, economic and anthropological impact of technological innovations such as electric light, radio, television, automobiles, airplanes and the Internet, it is now up to us to assimilate the so-called artificial intelligence and the new possibilities of the digital environment.
Claiming that artificial intelligence represents a greater challenge than those of the past does not take into account that we had no difficulty at all in “artificial intelligence".“digest them”and that is why we consider them easier.
Are there possibilities for the Gospel not to remain confined to the private sphere, but to become a leaven in the culture?
-The problem probably does not lie in a lesser capacity of Christianity to influence culture, but in the inability to realize how much culture is already indebted to Christianity. Therefore, it lives a kind of inferiority complex that inhibits it.
You have worked extensively on the theology of the family. How does the family continue to be a “family" today?“school of hope"?
-We have learned to look people in the eye, to smile, to walk, to talk, to trust people and things within the home of our origins. Elementary grammar and basic vocabulary, even of the most sophisticated cultural operation, we have learned in the family. What more can be added?
If you had to choose an image or an episode that describes the function of Christian culture for our time, which one would you give us?
-The seed that falls to the ground and dies.
What wish or message would you like to address, from your role, to those who today are engaged in study, teaching or research, even outside the Church?
-Courage is the beginning of everything, including all research. You don't know where it comes from, but it always inaugurates something new that demands fidelity.
So: Courage!
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