The Regnum Christi in Spain on Monday, October 19, awarded the VII Alter Christus Awards with which it wants to recognize and value the dedication and contribution of priests to people and society. In this VII edition, the prizes have been awarded to Fr. Vicente Fontestad Pastor, for his dedication to the Clergy in the Archdiocese of Valencia; to don José Luis Segovia Bernabé, Episcopal Vicar for Social Pastoral and Innovation of the Archdiocese of Madrid; Don Renzo Bonetti, President of the “Famiglia Dono Grande” Foundation; and to don Raúl Tinajero Ramírez, Director of the Youth Pastoral Department of the EEC, in the category of New Evangelization.
This year, awards were given for welcoming African and Latin American priests on their arrival in Spain; social work in prisons, neighborhoods and the marginalized world; attention to and projection of families so that they can be instruments of evangelization; and commitment to the New Evangelization of young people.
Francisco Cerro, Archbishop of Toledo, and Alvaro Garcia Paniagua, Vicar for the Clergy of his diocese; and the members of the Territorial Board of Directors of Regnum Christi: Fr. Javier Cereceda, LC, Territorial Director of the Legionaries of Christ, Betty Rivera, Territorial Director of the Legionaries of Christ, and Fr. Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi, Emilio Martínez, territorial director of the Lay Consecrated Men of Regnum Christi, José Miguel Mohedano, a layman who attends the Territorial Board of Directors.
Family Pastoral Award
Don Renzo Bonetti, president of the “Famiglia Dono Grande” Foundation and head of the National Office for the Pastoral Care of the Family
The priest, who was present via streaming from Verona (Italy), recognized the importance of baptism as the “summit of dignity” of the Christian. “Every vocation means putting oneself before and I believe that in the sacrament of marriage Jesus uses us for service,” he explained.
“Marriage is a great gift for the Church and Christ himself has chosen it as a sign of his presence.”
Bonetti thanked the Alter Christus Foundation and Regnum Christi for this award. “I believe that God wanted to make a great seal of love through marriage,” he explained. “Marriage is a great gift for the Church, as St. Paul expresses it, and Christ himself wanted to choose it as a sign of his presence,” he added.
New Evangelization Award
Mr. Raúl Tinajero, director of the Subcommittee on Youth and Children of the Spanish Episcopal Conference and priest of the Archdiocese of Toledo.
Tinajero has always been linked to young people, promoting new methods of evangelization. “Throughout life, the young person has to be a seeker and a rebel with a cause, who does not conform and faces life with illusion and hope,” the priest explained. He also acknowledged that the words of Pope Francis were very important in encouraging young people to participate in the Church. “Just like Pope Francis, young people were asking the Church to communicate a language that they understand, and I am in favor of young people having more protagonism in the spaces of reflection because it gives us clues as to how we have to respond. The Church is based on a Magisterium and a history, but it also has to respond to the signs of the times and the Gospel is always current”, added Tinajero.
“Evangelizers need to be awakened”
The priest thanked Cardinal-Archbishop Osoro and Regnum Christi for their presence. “I feel sent to carry out this task that the Church entrusts to us and to continue serving young people. Now is the time to continue, to encourage and be aware that we must give prominence to young people and give them the place they demand. We must awaken the evangelizers and we are trying to do it with the young people. Thank you for encouraging the work we are doing”, concluded the priest.
Social Pastoral Award
José Luis Segovia, diocesan priest and Episcopal Vicar for Social Pastoral and Innovation in the Archdiocese of Madrid.
The Alter Christus Award for Social Pastoral was presented to José Luis Segovia, who, among other duties, is currently the Episcopal Vicar for Social Pastoral and Innovation in the Diocese of Madrid. A social vocation that began very young, as he revealed in the video with which he was presented: “I wanted to be a police inspector and I had a very deep encounter with the Lord, although at first I resisted. Finally I asked to enter the seminary and explained to the archbishop that I felt called to be a priest from exclusion. I was allowed to continue helping and defending the poor in a limited way, always defending and never accusing, so that it would be compatible with the ministry I was exercising. I have been a lawyer and a priest for many years,” explained Segovia.
“Social action is the long hand of God and the heart of Jesus seeking that everyone has what is necessary to live with the dignity of the children of God. We must make a covenant with the poor as friends, not as recipients, but as friends as those with whom you share,” the priest added.
“Together we are the condition of possibility of the testament of Jesus, be one for the world to believe, as the Word says”.”
“I have always thought that recognitions are not things to celebrate because those given on earth are discounted to us in Heaven, but, in any case, I understand it as a gesture of affection not to my person, but to a diocese and to concrete faces of anonymous people who will not have recognition, but who give good news to those who receive bad news from injustice and life,” said Segovia, thanking all those present for the award.
“When we go together and overcome the nonsense that separates us and we are able to follow Jesus, fill ourselves with the experience of God and feel summoned by the suffering of the poor, we see how essential God and suffering humanity are,” the priest explained. In addition, he affirmed that, during the pandemic, “we have been more Church than ever, not because we are separated, but because we went together,” he assured. “When we go together and we place ourselves at the feet of Christ crucified to be a sensitive witness, then we make credible not only the Church of Jesus, but we make our God visible, because the world is in need of God to break the silence in which we plunge it, partly with our divisions,” he explained, which have often been the cause, he said, “of our failures in evangelization”. “Together we make the testament of Jesus a condition of possibility, be one for the world to believe, as the Word says,” concluded the priest.
Award for Attention to the Clergy
Mr. Vicente Fontestad Pastor, Vicar General of the Diocese of Valencia
The priest, who could not be present at the ceremony, recalled, through a video, a passage from the Gospel that helps to better understand the meaning of welcome. “A moment that teaches us the meaning of welcome is that of Jesus on the cross, when he has a dialogue with John and Mary and says: “There you have your mother and your son. From that moment on he welcomed her into his home”. The priest acknowledged that this is a moment of “intense welcome” and this is how everything has to be. “We have to realize that the other person is my brother. She needs me, I need her too, but the other needs me to make space for her in my life,” he explained. “The title Alter Christus is a requirement to be able to serve all people and priests, it is a kind of obligation to make Christ transparent with our life and with our testimony,” he said.
The Primate Archbishop of Toledo, D. Francisco Cerro
The Archbishop of Toledo, Don Francisco Cerro, also dedicated a few words of thanks to the foundation: “Thanks to Alter Christus and this University, which has such a simple but profound work and is at the service of the Church. It is the most beautiful thing we can do”, explained the Archbishop.
Your work has a very beautiful meaning of what has to be a form of evangelization.
He also addressed a few words to the award winners. “Your work has a very beautiful meaning of what has to be a way of evangelizing,” commented Monsignor Cerro.
The cardinal recalled the words of Pope Francis in his last encyclical Fratelli Tutti: The human being is made in such a way that he does not realize or develop himself or find fulfillment if it is not in the surrender of himself to others; he does not even recognize his own truth if it is not in the encounter with others. “It seems to me that today real value is given to what the Pope tells us and that it is part of the mystery of our life as priests,” Osoro acknowledged. He also thanked Regnum Christi and the prizewinners for being concrete priests who know how to “answer and respond” to the question Jesus asks in the Gospel: "And who is my neighbor?
Thank you for making this meeting possible and for the revaluation of our dedication to others from this priestly ministry where we find the strength and joy of identifying with Christ in our dedication to those who need it most.
“There are people and priests who have the ability to kneel before others, because he who gets off his horse and approaches those who are lying down like the Good Samaritan does, is someone who kneels before others,” said the Cardinal. Osoro thanked each of the award winners and dedicated words of affection and friendship to all of them. “Thank you for making this meeting possible and for revaluing our dedication to others from this priestly ministry where we find the strength and joy of identifying ourselves with Christ in our dedication to those who need it most and who are most in need at this time,” he concluded.
