Many professors left as well as many friends. After a little, disputes would enter the walls of the Church and would hit us, especially the young priests. “A victorious Church, that seemed determined, grand: in those days, there were 3000 bishops in Rome! Everything was permeated with positive sentiment from the desire to follow through with the announcement. “It was very exciting”, Father Valerio lights up. “We used to talk in Latin with the teachers, with priests that we met on pilgrimages, with university students that came from 130 different countries! The courses, handouts and exams were all in Latin.” But now the Church opens up to the world: the language, rites and the missal. Actually, it was a whole lot more, an attempt to rethink the experience of the Church.”Īt that time, everything is in Latin, not only the Mass. “I remember people talking about renewing the Church in a changing world. They accompanied me to look beyond, to not close in myself.” These are the years of the Second Vatican Council: on January 25th 1959, when Pope John XXIII announces the Council at Saint Paul outside the Walls, Father Valerio is also there. They helped me to understand who I was, my vocation and my limits. “A welcoming atmosphere in a city rich in history and ecclesial experience. Philosophy at the Gregorian University with the Jesuits, then Theology at Sant’Anselmo, the university of Benedictines. Once I arrived in Africa, it was the same beauty that we tried to live and build.”Īfter Florence, it is Rome where Father Valerio remains for seven years at the Seminary Lombardo. I didn’t know, but it was telling me about God. “The encounter with Father Giussani, many years later, helped me to understand why I was so attracted to this beauty. From that moment, there hasn’t been any doubt about it.” The studies at Florence are also an introduction to visual art, museums, and to the beauty of the city. I was attracted to what I saw in my superiors, even if the desire to live for the Lord was not yet clear.” However, it would become evident that what is at stake is “to offer the whole life for Him. “On this journey, my vocation matured, especially during the high school years in Florence. This would become the first of many trips that would take him farther than what he could have imagined. “I didn’t know what to expect, but it was an opportunity to go ahead with the studies”, he remembers today. His friend Luciano, a year before, entered the seminary at San Sepolcro. For middle school, he had to go back and forth between his home and Galeata, covering 20 kilometers of dirt road one way. He was a bright student as a child who loved to study. He tells us, “here is the house where I lived as a child, a mill along the river.” Father Valerio is the youngest of four children. He smiles as rain pours down from the sky – without an umbrella and not even a rain jacket – yet he looks as if he were at peace with the world. He is in Italy to take part in the Assembly to elect the new superior general of the Fraternity of St. We meet him at Santa Sofia, a little town on the Apennine where he was born, with a flooding rain that locks up 4000 residents of the town in their houses. However, you need to hear his story to see where his joy comes from. You only need to look at a photo of him with children of Nairobi, Kenya, where he is for the past 33 years. There is no need to do an interview to know that Father Valerio is a happy man.
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