Of Emmanuele COPPOLA
The agreement with the Municipality of Giugliano is no longer active
After more than a year, it can be said that the Franciscan convent has flourished again, when abandonment and dismemberment had already been feared according to the factions that immediately took the field after the announcement of its closure on 14 July 2022. it had been a spontaneous reaction, justified by a wave of popular indignation, with the emergence of many small hidden interests of those who aspired to his fragmented occupation to allocate there a voluntary association, of assistance to who knows who and for what, and even a place to be dedicated to animal welfare. In short, a sort of caravanserai was looming on the horizon, a no man’s land to be occupied, especially by those who until the day before perhaps did not even know where the Convent was located, and knew nothing about its history. Obviously, the appetite of any municipal administration was reawakened, in the wake of the others that had already tried to occupy the Convent and the space of its vast Garden, starting from the Sixties with the aim of building a school centre, obviously in the ten thousand square meters to be bulldozed, and then with the plan to transform the Convent into a shelter for former drug addicts, behind which a scandalous commercial operation was hidden. In short, the eyes of those who only saw economic opportunities in it have always been focused on the Convent, and always with the prospect of a building transformation. But we all know its more recent history, hinged on the decision by the Minorite Franciscan Province of Naples to cede everything to the Diocese of Aversa. We applauded that wise decision, which would have safeguarded the history and tradition of the ancient building of worship and reception, abandoned by the Friars on the exact anniversary of the four hundred years since its inauguration, dated 1622. We have cultivated the hope of not make disappear the last trace of the conventual history that had taken root in the town in the sixteenth/seventeenth century with the erection of three Franciscan convents and subsequently, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, with the construction of the Conceptionist Monastery in the historic center. But, of all that history, only this last bastion of culture and spirituality remained standing, the Franciscan Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which since February 2023 has been entrusted to the care and attention of the former parish priest of Sant’Anna, Don Massimo Del Prete, with so much responsibility and almost no economic resources. The diocesan Bishop, Monsignor Angelo Spinillo, believed in it, accepting a difficult inheritance to manage at the service of the city of Giugliano, without being confused and ensnared by the epistolary and formal pilgrimages of those who had made themselves available to have a little place to manage at ‘inside of it. But, wisely, it was then said that the nature and mission of this Convent should not be distorted, maintaining, first of all, its function as a center of liturgy and spirituality, maintaining the pre-established associative groups, such as the Franciscan Third Order, the Giuliano 1 Scout Group, the Spirit Renewal Movement, the Marta and Maria volunteer group. And so we went forward, trusting in the support of Providence to even pay the electricity bills, experiencing with bitterness that nothing was left of that popular movement, whose occasional promoters did not want the Convent to be abandoned. But all those who had joined, from near and far, that so-called ”popular movement” abandoned it, drastically reducing the demonstrations of concrete solidarity. It seems that, finally, an improvement is beginning to appear in the monthly accounts of the ordinary management of the Convent, with the meager proceeds from pilgrimages and charity dinners, and finally with the hospitable welcome of the Scout Groups coming from various places in the Campania region, much that the garden and the accommodation facilities are transforming into a sort of Scout Base, being able to correspond to the needs of essentiality that the Scouts have, i.e. outdoor spaces for pitching tents and for the construction of squadron corners, rooms for night shelter for the little ones, the kitchen suitable for providing a hundred meals, the refectory, the church for ordinary spirituality, the water points in the garden, the toilets, covered rooms in case of rain and for training meetings. Thus, in fact, with the availability of these spaces, services and structures, a Scout Base is established to host groups on average made up of around a hundred members including Cubs, Guides and Explorers, Rovers and Scouts, and Community Leaders. The Garden, which in previous years had been open to the public due to a stringent agreement signed by the Municipality of Giugliano with the Franciscan Minoritic Province of Naples, was transferred to the full and absolute availability of the Diocese of Aversa, entrusted, obviously, for the responsibility of management, to the Rector Don Massimo Del Prete, who makes use of various community groups to keep it clean, tidy and usable. Therefore, one cannot boast of previously agreed rights over it, nor can any authority be exercised to demand that it be considered of public utility, i.e. an asset subservient to the will of any municipal administration, which has demonstrated in the years before of not being able to manage it in full compliance with the Agreement signed on 5 November 2009, so much so that that anomalous contract could have been terminated already a few months after its inauguration on 20 May 2015. The necessary and ordinary maintenance was not ensured for the affiliated Garden, and not even cleaning, even before the closure caused by the Covid epidemic. Afterwards, with the return to normality, things got worse, as it was never reopened, and obviously no cleaning and ordinary maintenance work was carried out to restore its usability. And now we learn that the municipal administration would be interested in returning to the agreed management of the Franciscan Garden, probably by improvidently knocking on the door of the diocesan bishop, now that its management has been usefully streamlined by the Rector of the historic convent structure, where no there are more friars, but Saint Francis has remained there as a sure reference of welcome and spirituality. If there is a need for other green spaces to be offered to the citizens, one wonders why attention is not directed where it would be justified and legitimate to get involved, perhaps recovering a small part of the land owned by the Municipality of Giugliano, not much away from the municipal library, instead of continuing to pursue the path of occupation of other assets on which private rights insist. The historic delimitation of the Franciscan Garden was safeguarded in the drafting of the project, when another ”elegant” solution was envisaged with the demolition of the perimeter wall to be replaced with railings. But that project did not pass, because it would have betrayed the original purpose of ”Orto concluded”, as if to say that history cannot be touched. Therefore, it must be reiterated that the Convent, to continue to be a useful reference for Franciscan aggregation and spirituality, must continue to be one with its Garden, even more so now that it is usefully and rationally managed by the plural community to which it was entrusted by will of the diocesan Bishop, precisely for the purpose of safeguarding it in its preconceived integrity.
