In Naples, a group of middle school students, during the screening of the film on the dear Giancarlo Siani, Fortapàsc, applauds when the journalist is killed by a killer sent by the Camorra. Sad. The episode quickly made the rounds in editorial offices and on the web. anyway I am contacted by a national television network for an opinion. I can’t, I’m already busy, but I won’t deny that I’m happy not to intervene in a public debate.
Stereotypes die late, and television times are always exaggeratedly stingy. There is not a day in which I am not a guest in a school, elementary, middle, high school – forgive the old nomenclature, but I prefer it to the more recent one – up to university. The young people I meet are cheerful, intelligent, helpful, attentive. The real problem is that, many times, we adults lack the most important thing towards them: example. We don’t always match words with facts. Having said this, always, in every school, I have found students ready to listen, ask and intervene. Excellent training meetings have always resulted. Never, not even once, have I found kids praising the Camorra, the ‘Ndrangheta, the Mafia.
If, however, to the immense figures of Falcone and Borsellino, we were able to add the many other names of people who fell into the ugly hands of the mafia, which we struggle to remember, it would be a good thing. If we stopped presenting certain squalid characters – and I’m not just referring to mafiosi – as heroes who can do everything, achieve everything with their highly questionable methods; if we convinced ourselves to take as models not only the great heroes – or, for those who believe, the great holy martyrs – but ordinary people, parents, neighbors. the parish priest, the mayor of the town, the baker, who, honestly, stubbornly, courageously, every day, at every hour of the day, remain in their place, firm, faithful to their mandate, to their vocation, without fuss, away from the cameras , would be, once again, a good and right thing.
No, I’m not overly worried about the small group that applauded Siani’s death. I dare to think that like many of his peers and many adults, he was only looking for a bit of publicity. And how can we escape from anonymity today and have a moment of glory among friends or on social media? The path is always the same: going against the current. Already against the current, first, however, we should agree on what and where the current is going. But is there something that worries me? Certainly, and a lot, actually a lot. I am worried about the terrible example that the adult world is giving to these poor kids with the horrible wars fought outside their home. I am saddened by the cynicism of many arms producers and traders who lick their chops over the booming business. I am baffled by those who talk about the right to abortion while completely ignoring the fate reserved for the little one who will never again have the joy of coming into the world. The document from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, released recently, “Dignitas Infinita”, is beautiful.
Ontological dignity that does not depend on our economic condition, the country in which we were born, our health, our age, our IQ, but which is inscribed in our very DNA. Dignity that does not blossom on the day of birth but at the very moment of conception. I am distressed – and very much so – by the drama of pedophilia and child pornography which is always talked about so little and it is not clear why. I am saddened by the deaths at work, the women murdered by the men who said they loved them. I have met thousands of kids in schools and others are scheduled. I always return home with a heart full of gratitude and hope. I always end the meeting by asking them for forgiveness for all the times that they did not receive the examples they were entitled to from the adult world. I feel sorry for the kids who applauded during the film about dear Siani. I’m ready to meet them. I am sure that if we know how to listen to them they will end up apologizing and confessing the discomfort that accompanies them. Will we adults have the courage to throw off the mask and stand the comparison?
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