At the recent missionary meeting of seminarians, the archbishop of Naples recalled his meeting in the 1980s with the unforgettable bishop of the Brazilian favelas: “In his embrace I experienced God’s abandonment”
«In the arms of Dom Helder Camara I felt and experienced abandonment in God. That day my discovery took place. And, in that abandonment in God, I experienced my first consecration”. In a recent speech, the archbishop of Naples Mimmo Battaglia thus recalled the origins of his vocation. Speaking at the national missionary convention of seminarians, he recalled his meeting with the great Brazilian archbishop of Olinda and Recife, for more than twenty years pastor of the poor in the favelas, who died in 1999.
The meeting between the young Battaglia and Msgr. Camara took place in the 1980s, when the Calabrian Church organized a meeting with a representation of young people from the various dioceses to plan youth ministry. In the time of doubts about the road to take in one’s life, the encounter with the small and fragile figure of the Brazilian bishop touched the heart and mind of the future pastor of Naples even in apparently marginal details. «He ate very little: two strands of pasta – recalls Msgr. Battle -. He didn’t want the meat: “No, thank you, he said, my people don’t eat it.” He didn’t even want coffee: “No, thanks, he said, they make my people make coffee, but they don’t let them drink it”. If in my mother’s eyes I had glimpsed the light of God’s love, in this man I had grasped the divine sense of justice”.
«God confirmed me – underlined the archbishop of Naples – through the paternal arms of Dom Helder. God gave me appointments, I was only required to realize it, abandoning myself to the marvelous unconsciousness of a yes».
But there was also another important character in the vocational history of the archbishop of Naples, another bishop, a southerner like him, to whom he feels connected: don Tonino Bello, the unforgettable bishop of Molfetta and a great witness of peace. “God manifests himself and speaks to us through seemingly absurd situations – commented mgr. Battaglia – humble and simple people, witnesses against the tide, men and women in love with peace in a world that cheers wars, men and women dressed in an apron who have had the ability to renounce the signs of power to make use of the power of signs. These men and women thus become missionaries for us, men and women who get their hands dirty with the mud of our hearts until they trace the blue of the sky, the gold of sonship, thus restoring us to our path, to following. Don Tonino Bello was all of this for me and I thank him because he has profoundly marked my life, and he continues to be fruitful with seeds, love and novelty ».
«To him – added the archbishop of Naples – I owe the fundamental lesson on social commitment and volunteering; he was the one who taught me that before everything, every theoretical value, every lofty ideal, there are names, faces, stories. If I retrace the path of my choices, of this deeply restless vocation, I understand that my discovery of God, or rather, my search and my letting myself be reached, was, and is, a path marked by faces, encounters, people: not the generic poor, but those I meet; not the sick but the faces marked by the pain of each of them; not social problems, but the concrete history of those who meet along the way».