POZZUOLO DEL FRIULI. He died on Sunday, May 15th, Don Pierluigi of Piazzafounder of the Ernesto Balducci Reception and Cultural Promotion Center based in Zugliano di Pozzuolo del Friuli. President of the Center and parish priest of Zugliano, he was a point of reference for his commitment to realizing the idea of a poor Church consistent with the Gospel.
At the basis of his clear choice of service to the community are: the Gospel, hospitality and the Eucharist. An experience mixed with history and faith. Witness of culture of the non-violence, peace, solidarity and civil commitment which he practiced always having as reference Father E. Balducci, Don Milani and Bishop Romero. As a man of faith and deeply committed, he has always shown great openness to ecumenism and dialogue between religions, following constantly ideals of justice and safeguarding the planet in harmony with Pope Francis.
He was also distinguished by his positions on the main current issues that he has always treated with great depth and intellectual rigor: “I feel a layman, a humble believer always in search – he said of himself – a priest for an available, disinterested, free service in the Christian community and in society “. Within the Diocese of Friuli he was a progressive priest and very attentive to ecclesial dynamics, developing evangelical choices for a Church “outside the temple”.
He had been ill for some months and left a great void in the Friulian community, among the hundreds of volunteers of the Center and among those who knew and appreciated him in Italy and abroad.
Born in Tualis di Comeglians (UD) on November 20, 1947, he has always felt very attached to his Carnic origins. He graduated in Theology in 1994 at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and taught in schools for 30 years. In 1989 he founded the Ernesto Balducci Reception and Cultural Promotion Center, an example of what is a concrete and constructive of human dignity and integration.
In recent decades it has welcomed a thousand refugees emigrants from over 50 countries around the world, all accompanied on a path of complete integration into Italian society. Among the current fifty guests of the Center, including refugees from Ukraine, a Syrian family and an Afghan family who arrived in recent days.
Convinced that culture is the basis of change and openness to others, he has made the Balducci Center also an important reference for cultural promotion where, in recent years, important witnesses of our time met between these the Dalai Lama and the Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.
The theologian is at home Vito Mancusothe philosopher Massimo Cacciari e don Luigi Ciotti to which he was linked by fraternal friendship. But also many other important exponents of culture, journalism, the judiciary, the economy, the trade union and politics. On the site of the Center we read: “we are on a journey with immigrants, refugees, political refugees who, living with us, they make us feel together with the Tribes of the earth and continually stimulate us to open ourselves to the world, to reflect, to propose meetings, to broaden and strengthen the network of knowledge, reciprocity, collaborations “.
A freelance journalist, he collaborated to the last with various newspapers and magazines. One of his best-known books, Io credo, dates back to 2012. Dialogue between an atheist and a priest, written together with the astronomer Margherita Hack and edited by Marinella Chirico (Nuovadimensione). Among other works Outside the temple, The Church at the service of humanity (Laterza 2011), Companions on the road, Walking in the church of hope (Laterza, 2014); My enemy is indifference. Being Christians in the time of the great exodus (Laterza 2016); Living and Dying with dignity (with Beppino Englaro, Giulia Facchini Martini and Vito Di Piazza, New Dimension 2016); Don’t turn away. The Challenges of Reception (New Dimension 2019).
Since 2004 he was an honorary member of the Interecclesial Commission Justizia y Paz of Bogotà and in 2006 he received an honorary degree in Solidarity Economics from the University of Udine.
“With constancy and rigor – the representatives of the Community write moved in their last greeting to Fr Pierluigi – you have built paths of peace, justice and solidarity, you have shared them with many people, you have made the Balducci Center grow from an intuition in the distant 1989 to a reality known and appreciated all over the world today “.
The funeral home will be open in the Petris room of the Balducci Center on Monday 16 May 2022 from 7 to 19 and Tuesday 17 May 2022 from 7 to 12.
The prayer vigil will take place in the Petris room at the Balducci Center on Monday 16 May 2022 at 8 pm The funeral will take place on Tuesday 17 May 2022 in the Petris room of the Balducci Center at 4 pm.
The celebration of the funeral and subsequent burial will be held at the parish church of Tualis (Comeglians) Wednesday 18 May 2022 at 4 pm
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