to concrete service as deacon in the Church
I was a leader in the Communist Party.
I had made my political commitment a career because I wanted to devote myself
entirely to resolving the social situation of my country. At the age of 42, I
had reached the height of my career by becoming the President of the
“Cooperative of Di Vittoria” which I had founded. It had 10,000 shareholders
and with a construction record of 3,000 homes.
In April of 1987, I began to realize
that the ideas that I had embraced wholeheartedly no longer had a future. On
arriving back home, I plopped down on the sofa, and that is where my wife found
me when she got back in. She then asked me what had happened. I responded that
I had to reconsider all the values that I believed in.
My wife’s closeness gave me comfort.
Through a continual and close dialogue with her, I soon realized a growing
desire within me to be married in the Church, but I did not have the courage to
say it. She was the one who finally proposed it to me. We got married in Church
and my daughter Desi also asked to be baptized on the same occasion.
My vocation to be a deacon matured within
the parish. During that period, the person responsible at the diocesan level
for deacon formation, Fr. Vincenzo Chiarle, helped us to get to know and live
the spirituality of unity.
At the beginning, it all seemed easy,
but then the trials also came. We both found ourselves jobless. My father died
and shortly after, also my mother. We then entrusted ourselves to God, not in a
fatalistic manner, but by doing all that was within our power.
Suddenly, we both found a job, and a
good one at that!
When I was ordained a deacon, I
realized that my conversion had truly begun because God was opening me up not
only to a new relationship as a couple and as a family, but with the whole
Church community. Also my old values to better humanity, which seemed buried,
blossomed again in an entirely new way: no longer on the basis of class
struggle, but on universal brotherhood.