On the coffin the tricolor sash as mayor of Nusco, the last position he held after having spent a lifetime in the institutions and for the Christian Democrats. A moved crowd bid farewell to Ciriaco De Mita, who passed away yesterday morning at the age of 94: in the front row the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, accompanied by his daughter Laura, then the Foreign Minister, Luigi Di Maio, the president of the Campania Region, Vincenzo De Luca, many politicians of today and yesterday. The small cathedral of Nusco was unable to accommodate all those who wished to participate in the funeral: it was necessary to limit the entrances, to block access to the church for safety reasons and to set up a large screen, in a nearby square, in order to follow the entire ritual. De Mita liked to meet his people, perhaps holding back to play endless games of tressette and scopone. The younger daughter, Simona, wanted a deck of Neapolitan cards to be in her father’s coffin. And inevitably the farewell ceremony sees personal and family memories intertwined with the political history of the country. At the funeral there are the institutions of the past and the present: from the undersecretary for the interior, Carlo Sibilia, to the former ministers Angelino Alfano and Nicola Mancino. Giuseppe Gargani confesses: “I will miss his reproaches.”
To hold up the banner of scudocrociato pride thinks Pierferdinando Casini: «All the people here show what Christian Democracy was. I believe it is the moment of the tribute and perhaps also of a historical re-evaluation ». Also in church Clemente Mastella, who was De Mita’s historic spokesman, and another great old man of the DC, Gerardo Bianco. Paying homage to the statesman in his homily is the bishop of Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi, Pasquale Cascio: «As a Christian layman De Mita has always thought of the people. He served our country with the intelligence of faith ». Touching are the words spoken at the end of the ceremony by his son Giuseppe and his grandchildren, who mix testimonies and anecdotes with the commitment to carry on the values learned in the family. Then the journalist Giuseppe Sangiorgi, one of De Mita’s closest collaborators and head of his secretariat in his experience as prime minister at Palazzo Chigi, retraces some moments of that political season. Until the coffin comes out of the church, amid applause. Leading exponent of democratic Catholicism, committed to the renewal of the party and to reform the institutional architecture of the country, even at the height of his political season, De Mita always maintained a strong relationship with his roots, with his land and people. After having been in charge of the government and of the most powerful Italian party in the eighties, he died as mayor of his Nusco: here the emotion is authentic, together with the concern that, once he left, the development of the inland areas of Campania would return to the forgotten priorities.A long applause greeted the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella upon his arrival in Nusco, Irpinia, where the solemn funeral of Ciriaco De Mita, the Christian Democrat statesman who died at the age of 94, was celebrated.
De Mita: President Sergio Mattarella’s last farewell to the Christian Democrat statesman
The memory of his son Giuseppe
“Hi Dad”. Thus the beginning of the speech of the son of Ciriaco De Mita, Giuseppe, during the homily in the basilica of Sant’Amato. «I thank the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella – added Giuseppe De Mita -. This demonstrates the work as a statesman that you have done throughout your life and for all ordinary people and for our country. You finished your life carrying out the activity you liked the most, with incredible perseverance and rare and refined intelligence ». Then he urges: «I have three teenage children and I always explain to them who you have been but they will know the greatness later in life. The greatness and refinement of your thought ». And then: «Dad, don’t worry – concludes the son of the former DC secretary – you don’t leave us alone but with incredible pride and with a wonderful mother. You have always told us that there can be no future without memory ».
The bishop’s words
“As a Christian layman De Mita has always thought of the people,” said the bishop of Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi, Pasquale Cascio, during the homily of the funeral ceremony, who presided over the rite with the bishop emeritus of Salerno, Gerardo Pierro. De Mita, concluded Msgr. Cascio, “he served our country with the intelligence of faith”.
Maresca: “A great politician of the twentieth century”
Catello Maresca, magistrate and councilor of the Municipality of Naples, also arrived in Nusco on the occasion of Ciriaco De Mita’s funeral. Maresca did not want to miss his closeness to the family of the former DC leader. Already yesterday, on the day of his death, he had in fact expressed his condolences recalling De Mita as “a great politician of the twentieth century”, who “did so much for the country and his Nusco”. “A commitment that I have made – Maresca assured – and that I will now try to carry out in honor of him too”.