There is a thread running through the San Marino summer that has just ended. A thread that begins on 22 August, when Pope Leone XIV climbed Mount Titano to mark the centenary of relations with the Holy See, and stretches to 3 September, when Cardinal Zuppi celebrated, in the Basilica, the one thousand seven hundred and twenty-sixth anniversary of the Republic’s founding. In between, as always, stand our institutions.
There is the Captains Regent.
There are we ourselves.
That thread has only one name, repeated three times: freedom. And now that the Council (Consiglio Grande e Generale) resumes its work, now that the Commissions meet again, now that politics restarts its engines, there is only one question: did we truly listen?
The first freedom: the Pope’s
Leone XIV, addressing the Grand and General Council, opened the word Libertas as one opens a treasure chest.
And he told us two things that no agenda can afford to ignore. The first: there is no civil freedom without the freedom of the individual, without respect for their dignity and for the space of conscience. The second: San Marino can be a “laboratory” of good politics. A laboratory, not a monument. A place where one experiments, makes mistakes, corrects course, and builds.
The Pope also warned us against the idols that hollow out freedom: power as an end in itself, profit elevated to the measure of all things. Anyone involved in politics knows that these idols do not dwell only far from here. They inhabit every temptation to turn institutions into instruments of faction, every calculation that puts convenience before conviction.
The second freedom: the Captains Regent’s
I had the honour of serving the Republic as Captain Regent, alongside Matteo Rossi, during the term in which we extended to the Holy Father the invitation that was fulfilled this summer. And that experience as Regent taught me something I would like to pass on to all colleagues, of majority and opposition alike: San Marino’s freedom is built on limits. Two Heads of State, not one. Six months, not a lifetime. Collegiality, not command.
Our forefathers understood, centuries before modern constitutions existed, that freedom is defended by preventing power from concentrating in one place. It is no coincidence that Cardinal Zuppi, on 3 September, pointed precisely to the Captains Regent as an example of a freedom that is never exercised alone. Institutions are greater than those who serve them: those who occupy them pass on, the institutions remain. That is the lesson.
Whoever walks into the chamber believing themselves more important than the chamber itself has already lost their way.
The third freedom: Zuppi’s
On 3 September, in the Basilica del Santo, the President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) closed the circle. Freedom, he said, is demanding — at times it can even be frightening — but it is the only way to be truly oneself.
And above all: one is not free alone. We are free by standing together, by thinking together. Individualism breeds supremacism; nationalism, he warned, leads to the destruction of nations. The celebration of our founding, he added, is a message to nations everywhere, urging them to relearn how to seek what unites in order to resolve what divides.
Words spoken to the world. But spoken from here. And so they apply, first and foremost, to us.
What we learn, now
Three encounters, three declensions of the same word. It would be a shame — in the fullest sense of the term — to file them away as successful ceremonies and go back to our small trenches.
The resumption of political activity is the real test. I propose three commitments, simple to state and hard to keep. And that is precisely why they matter.
First: lower the tone, raise the substance. Permanent polemic is individualism applied to politics. If individualism breeds supremacism among nations, among parties it breeds sterility. The challenges ahead of us — from the Association Agreement with the European Union to the reforms the country is waiting for — call for opponents, not enemies.
Second: make the Council the laboratory of good politics that the Pope spoke of. Draw on its principles — the dignity of the person, the common good, responsibility — without departing from the secular nature of the State. One need not be a believer to recognise that this grammar works. One only needs to be serious.
Third: safeguard our institutions the way one safeguards a freedom. Respect roles, timing, rules.
Every six months the Captains Regent remind us that power is a service with a term limit. Woe to whoever forgets that during the other five months and twenty-nine days.
In twelve summer days, San Marino received more attention from the world than it often receives in whole years. Not because of its size. Because of its meaning. A Pope and a Cardinal came to tell us that our history still speaks. It is now up to us not to reduce it to a whisper.
Freedom was handed to us three times this summer.
It falls to politics to earn it, every single day.
Starting tomorrow morning, in the chamber.
by Lorenzo Bugli
PDCS Councillor — former Captain Regent of the Republic
