LA MISSIONE DEI CANONICI DEL GRAN SAN BERNARDO IN CINA (UN’AVVENTURA ALLE PORTE DEL TIBET)

Abstract

In the thirties a small group of Canons from the Congregation of Grand-Saint-Bernard
left the valleys of the Alps in order to reach the mountain region of central Asia, in
the Tibetan marks of western China. Lacking any kind of training, these young
missionaries left with the unrealistic project of reaching a pass and build a hospice
similar in structure and orientation to the one established by their founder a thousand
years before. Although this primary purpose was never achieved, the canons became
witnesses of a corner of China hidden to the rest of the world, with its crossroads of
different ethnic groups, languages and cultures. Even more: their experience shows us
the possibility of an encounter between two universes so far away from each other, an
encounter based on this simple equation: “They are mountain people, we are mountain
people... It should work!”