Francis went to Bozzolo, not far from Mantua, tied to the memory of the "parish priest of Italy," the uncomfortable priest of whom Paul VI said, "He walked one step ahead and often we could not hold him back! And so he suffered and we also suffered. It is the fate of prophets. "

 

Bozzolo (AsiaNews) - A priest, known as the "parish priest of Italy," who "has sought to change the Church and the world through passionate love and unconditional dedication." This is how Pope Francis has today spoke of Don Primo Mazzolari (1890 - 1959), an uncomfortable priest, an advocate of principles established in the Second Vatican Council, such as the Church of the poor and dialogue with the distant. Paul VI said of him, "He walked one step ahead and often we could not hold him back! And so he suffered and we also suffered. It is the fate of prophets."

Francis spoke of him at Bozzolo, a village not far from Mantua, in the north of Italy, where he went today to pay homage to Don Mazzolari, who is buried there. From here, later, the Pope will travel to Barbiana, near Florence, linked to the memory of another uncomfortable priest, Don Lorenzo Milani. "Today," he said at his arrival, "I am a pilgrim here at Bozzolo and then on to Barbiana, in the footsteps of two parish priests who left an uncomfortable trace behind them, in their service to the Lord and the people of God. So often parish priests are the strength of the Church in Italy. When they are the faces of a non-clerical clergy, they give birth to a true 'magisterium of parish priests', which is so good for everyone. "

Pope Francis particularly emphasized Don Mazzolari's being a pastor, working in the "place where every man feels expected, a" hearth that knows no absences. " Don Mazzolari was convinced that "the fate of the world matures in the peripheries", and made his own humanity an instrument of God's mercy, in the manner of the father of the Gospel parable. "

"In his article The Parish, he proposes an examination of conscience regarding apostolic methods, convinced that the problems parishes of his time was due to a defect of incarnation. There were three roads that impeded evangelical direction:

That of "letting things pass" of one who stays at the window without soiling his hands, or limits himself to criticize errors without a proactive capacity. This attitude sets our conscience at rest, but has nothing to do with Christianity because it leads to withdrawing, with a spirit of judgment, sometimes even bitterness

The second false method is that of separatist activism. We are committed to creating Catholic institutions (banks, cooperatives, clubs, trade unions, schools ...). So faith becomes more operative, but - Mazzolari warned - it can create an elite Christian community. Personal interests and customers with a Catholic label. And, without wanting it build barriers that risk becoming insurmountable in the emergence of the question of faith. It tends to affirm what it shares with respect to what it joins. It is a method that does not facilitate evangelization, rather it closes doors and creates mistrust.

The third mistake is a 'supernaturalism that is dehumanizing'. It takes refuge in the religious to overcome the difficulties and disappointments that come. It removes the parish from the world, the true field of the apostolate, to prefer devotions. It is the temptation of spiritualism. The result is a foolish apostolate, without love. "The distant can not be concerned with a prayer that does not become charitable, with a procession that does not help to carry every day crosses." Drama is consumed in this distance between faith and life, between contemplation and action. "

"So often " he said later, "I said that the shepherd must be able to stand in front of the people to point the way, in the middle as a sign of closeness or behind to encourage those who are behind (cf. Evangelii gaudium, 31). And Don Primo wrote: "Where I see the people slip to dangerous depths, I put myself behind them; Where it is necessary to climb, I stand up in front. Many do not understand that it is the same charity that moves in one and the other case and that no one can do it better than a priest. " With this spirit of fraternal communion, with you and with all the priests of the Church in Italy, I want to conclude with a prayer by Don Primo, a pastor in love with Jesus and his wish for all men to be saved:

 

"You came for everyone:

For those who believe

And for those who say they do not believe.

Both of them,

Sometimes these more than those,

Work, suffer, hope

For the world to get a bit better.

O Christ, you were born 'outside the home'

And you dies outside the town'

To be even more visible

At the crossroads and the meeting point.

No one is outside of salvation, O Lord,

Because no one is outside of your love,

Who does not wrestle and rebel

at our oppositions or our rejections. "