Santa Giustina, farewell to the maintenance technician Severino, loved by Niger in Col Cumano

Pinna, 56, died at Santa Maria del Prato after a brief hospitalization. On a mission with Fr Antoniol, he had been called to the center of spirituality

THE MOURNING. Severino Pinna died. And the whole diocese of Belluno Feltre mourns. He was 56 years old, he had been on a mission in Niger, he worked at the Pope Luciani Center in Santa Giustina.

“He was hospitalized in the Feltre hospital since November 19 for an illness discovered a few days ago”, so remembers Don Davide Fiocco, director of the Pope Luciani spirituality center in Col Cumano. “He had been operated on with some hope, but a series of complications had a fatal outcome on Wednesday evening. Our community wants to remember the figure for that bond of collaboration and friendship that had been going on for over a decade “.

The funeral will be celebrated tomorrow at 9 in the parish church of Santa Giustina. The body will then be taken to cremation: the family members will bring the ashes back to his Sardinia.

Severino was in fact born in Cagliari on February 5, 1965: he bore the name of the father he could not know, who died of an accident at work a few months before his birth. Raised by his mother and a large group of brothers, he entered the world of work, specializing in the real estate sector. He then moved to Bergamo to work in a large printing house and then to Iceland in a mining yard.

Having landed in the village of Corte in Cadore, he had come into contact with Don Virginio De Martin – then parish priest of Valle, Venas and Cibiana, now in Farra di Feltre – and from there he was convinced to donate a few years of his life in Niger, in the mission di Gaya, alongside the Feltre missionary Don Augusto Antoniol.

“The strong and generous character made Severino enterprising designer, site manager and entrepreneur, to build from the foundations those structures that our diocese left for the benefit of the local Christian community”, underlines Don Fiocco. “Among the Nigerian workers under his orders he has certainly remained a memory and not only for the manners and arcane Sardinian interlayers that were never lacking”.

In 2017, bishop Renato Marangoni, recalling Don Augusto to the diocese, made a proposal to Pinna: “Why don’t you put your skilful dexterity at the service of the Papa Luciani center?”. In this way Severino became a maintenance worker in Col Cumano, where he gave ample proof of his skills in the care of greenery, flowers and the house.

“Bishop Renato, the employees of the Diocesan Missionary Center, the Board of Directors and the employees of the Papa Luciani Center are now united in an embrace of solidarity and condolence, who want to bring their brothers, sisters and grandchildren to their beloved Sardinia” says Don Fiocco. «They remember in prayer this man who was a little gruff, but with a big heart, who had become one of us. All the more reason, he will be remembered with nostalgia in the coming days, when the great Christmas tree of Col Cumano will be lit: his idea ». Now rest in peace, in the arms of the Lord Jesus ».Francesco Dal Mas