Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at ceremony to present the medal of the ‘Grand Star of Public Gratitude’ to the Apostolic Nuncio, Charles John Brown:

 

Dear friend!

My dear Monsignor Charles John Brown!

Please accept my gratitude to everyone for responding to the invitation and join us today as we share this special moment to express my and our government gratitude to a prelate, a gentleman, a man highly esteemed by all you, as well as by all of those who were lucky enough to know him while serving in Albania.

“Do and say what is pleasing to God ,” a written sentence of the non-ratified Regola non bollata of the Franciscan friars in 1221, which is a recurring leitmotif of the last encyclical of Pope Francis, “All brothers” “Fratelli tutti”, announced no further than a week ago on the tomb of Saint Francis of Assisi.

This encyclical, which is read as a story of a pilgrim on rarely trodden paths, the Holy Father has explicitly titled: “Encyclical to fraternity and social friendship.”

“Religious fraternity,” he called the social coexistence between the Albanian believers in Christ or in Muhammad, may peace be upon him, during his unforgettable visit to Albania. His recent encyclical coincides with the departure from Albania of his envoy, Monsignor Charles, who stood among us and by us as a brother during the years of his humble service as an ambassador of the Holy See to this country.

Let me say that Monsignor Charles will remain in my eyes a special pilgrim among the herd of ambassadors, who unfolded fraternity and social friendship with a naturalness that to his fellow brothers and sisters in the art of diplomacy are not always so good at.

We are grateful about everything, like the whole world is grateful to an amazing pilgrim like Pope Francis, but we are also grateful for providing us here in Albania the opportunity to have someone like Monsignor Charles John Brown as his representative, who although pilgrimage is his main purpose, except being his mission, I cannot help but acknowledge, at least I, that I feel good while seeing him deeply moved that he must leave Albania.

Monsignor, you are neither the first nor the last person to find it difficult to leave this country, and believe me, I have seen a few who have come to Albania willingly, but I have yet to see anyone leaving willingly after having known this country and this people as they really are and not as they seemingly be behind the gloomy veil of prejudice.

Dear Monsignor!

I apologize that my words do not live up to the expression of the strong feeling of gratitude, friendship and admiration for You. Therefore, if I may, I will borrow some words of this speech in honor of you and in tribute to your life, which it seems to me cannot better be described than the words our Savior addressed to Peter on the day after the resurrection. “I tell you truly, Peter, that when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you liked, but when you are an old man, you are going to stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and take you where you do not want to go.”

You migrated first from the secular life, which started, if I am not mistaken, 61 years ago tomorrow in the East Village, Manhattan, then a neighborhood inhabited almost entirely by a population of Jewish origin. You then migrated from the university nest, where, – you know that the word spreads always fast in Albania – they say you were one of the most brilliant, to the offices of San Tuficio, where the battles for the inviolability of doctrine have a much more considerable planetary impact  than verbal sword crossings among the professors.

And in addition to the permanent burden of the congregation of the doctrine of the religion, you also happened to be right there, when the front to defend the doctrine was lead one of the most fervent doctrine defenders of the Catholic Church, the future pope, Cardinal Ratzinger.

Migration and migration only, from the strong beliefs of the theologian in the sacraments within the walls of the Vatican City-State, to the dilemmas of handling pastoral crises through the Holy See’s external service. And in this journey of unusual stations, it also seems to me from what I have consulted in this preparation that you are among the few of the Pope envoys, who do not belong to the diplomatic career missionaries of the Vatican. So, in a way, even in the Apostolic Nuncio community, you are not a native, but you are a pilgrim. In a way, what characterizes our precious friend we are honoring today, perhaps more than anything else, is walking, taking steps, with abrupt stops, but with a fixed orientation like the one King David sang thousands of years ago: “My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped.”

On the wings of Benedict XVI, the mentor cardinal who, although he became Pope, I don’t whether I am blaspheming, but it is not that he was recognized as a prophet in his own house, – Monsignor Charles was formed to be a “Cooperatores veritatis,” a cooperator of the truth.

With his superior wisdom, when times matured, Benedict XVI pulled him out of the nest of intellectual thought and meditation, tied his belt around his waist, and with the pastoral staff sent him to Ireland, where perhaps no one would want to go at that moment. With his pastoral staff and the Church’s authority plagued by the abuse of minors’ allegations, Monsignor Charles was granted the power which the prophet Jeremiah regarded as a precondition for spiritual and human recovery. “See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. When the catharsis, one of the most meaningful gestures in church history, the letter to Irish Catholics and the Benedict 16th, flooded over the unspeakable silence and evidence that clerical abuses had been sown as a seed of despair among the Irish faithful in Dublin, Monsignor Charles, the Apostolic Nuncio, wandered among thousands of hardships to recover the strongly fluctuating faith, to say words of comfort not easy to be found in that wound, to bring reconciliation and above all, to bring justice.

I don’t know how, but you dear Nuncio then traveled from Ireland to peaceful Albania. This seems, indeed, typical mysteries of the nomadic universe, where they are overtaken by the night are not overtaken by the day, as they say. From the night of Ireland, where you lit a light, you found yourself under the sun of Tirana, where sometimes it becomes dark right in the middle of the daylight.

What can we say today about the activity and fulfillment of your mission in Albania?

Better than anyone, this question was answered by the hundreds of faithful who attended the thanksgiving mass celebrated yesterday on the occasion of the farewell at St. Paul’s Cathedral. And since I mentioned St. Paul, the apostle of the nations, I think that when it comes to describing your mission in Albania, the last words Pope Paul VI articulated in his final moments: “I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

Faith, not in the sense of religion, but in the sense of the promised word that that you cultivated with the Albanians with the precision and godliness that characterizes you, when for them and with them over these years you have celebrated the sacred mysteries and the church cult, without forgetting to look at the worries and plights of ordinary people in their daily lives.

You, a disciple of Mother Teresa’s love missionaries; you loved the land of her origin as if it was yours. In return, this country, which you call La mia Albania (my Albania), will keep you in mind and heart, as if it had you a son of its own.

On the eve of your birthday and as you prepare to take office in the Philippines, in another mystery of the pilgrim’s universe, but a strategic country, not only for the Catholic Church, but for the whole free world in Southeast Asia, I modestly wish give you a symbol from Albania.

This is the Grand Star of Public Gratitude medal.

Just like the God of Jacob is the God of the living, not the dead, the medals are made for the living, not the dead. Because it is good for everyone to distinguish the living from the living, while distinguishing the fallen from the fallen is not work to be done. So medal titles are rarely given because appreciation makes sense for those who do. And the ‘Big Star’ is given even less often than to deserve it you must have deserved the worthy battle, kept the faith and continue to fight with all your heart to start from the beginning.

It is not an accident that this medal is materialized to include the symbols and colors of our National Hero, Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, the tireless athlete of faith who did not stop until his death; the victor of what St. Augustine called the just prayer. And this medal belongs to you, Monsignor. On that you will find the eagle that has accompanied you while climbing the Korab mountain; there you will find the 36 letters of the alphabet of our sacred language, precisely the language you learned over the past three years, leaving an indelible impression among Albanian people. On that medal you will find the red and black colors of our national flag which will then reconnect you with the red of the martyr and the black of the monastic and cavalier orders of a bygone era, which you as a Medieval expert and chaplain of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem know much better than me, at least.

Finally, you will also find there the crown on which the star, laurel in oak, nobility and strength are embroidered, but contrary to appearance, there is no epiphany of glory. Rather, the green of this crown is in fact a theophany of simplicity and the bewitching and inducing nature of hope. In hope we are redeemed, said St. Paul, recaptured then by your mentor, Benedict XVI, in an unforgettable encyclical of the pontificate.

With remain hopeful on this eve of your birthday and a new beginning for you. Hopeful that no matter how far away from this small country, you will continue to pray for Albania and that every time you pray, you will remember that in Albania you have made yourself a place in the heart of all those who you know and you will probably want to return to that country someday.

Thank you Monsignor and ad multos annos!