Week of March 02, 2005

MILAN, Italy (CNS) — Msgr. Luigi Giussani, 82, founder and spiritual guide of the Communion and Liberation movement, died Feb. 22 at his home in Milan. The international headquarters of Communion and Liberation in Milan said the monsignor died of complications from pneumonia. His body was to lie in the chapel of Milan’s Institute of the Sacred Heart until Feb. 24, when his funeral was to be celebrated in the Milan cathedral. The Vatican announced Feb. 22 that Pope John Paul II had asked Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to preside in his name at Msgr. Giussani’s funeral. Born in 1922 in Desio, near Milan, Luigi Giussani entered the archdiocesan seminary and was ordained to the priesthood in 1945. Music, literature, art and culture and their interaction with religious faith were the constant focus of his studies, his writing and his discussions with young people.