Actuality
Soufien Giuseppe Zitoun, 44 years old, was born in Mazara to Tunisian immigrant parents of Muslim religion. A life dedicated to his commitment. He studied at the Tunisian primary school (in Arabic and French) and then at the Italian one until training in the field of cultural mediation. He was the first deputy municipal councilor in Mazara del Vallo (the institution of the position was desired by the then mayor Nicolò Vella), being appointed following a recommendation from the Tunisian consulate in Palermo.
Subsequently Zitoun was voted by non-EU citizens residing in the area twice, in 2006 under the Macaddino Administration and in 2009 at the same time as the establishment of the Cristaldi Administration and his mandate expired at the end of the first Cristaldi union; Zitoun was granted Italian citizenship in 2014 by the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano. He thus grew up as a Muslim in a Catholic-Christian environment, collaborating with the diocesan Caritas for the immigration desk and with the Franciscan nuns. Then the meeting with Giusi Asaro and the wedding at the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Paradiso with a mixed rite.
He continued to work in the field of unaccompanied migrant minors as a cultural mediator. After the death of his wife Giusy Asaro (married in a mixed ceremony, in the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Paradiso) the conversion to Christianity and now the dream of becoming a priest. Soufien Giuseppe has been studying at the Theological Faculty of Sicily for less than a year, follows the preparatory lessons and, in the meantime, attends the religious institutes in Mazara del Vallo and Palermo of the Missionaries serving the poor who are inspired by the charisma of Giacomo Cusmano.
“My dream is to become a priest – he tells ANSA – with my wife in hospital I experienced the suffering that culminated in her death in 2018. During her hospital stay I met Don Antonino Favata, chaplain of the Mazara del Vallo hospital. He was close to me, to my in-laws and to Giusy, accompanying her with prayer and the grace of the sacraments, preparing her for her passage from this earthly life to heaven“. After his wife’s death, Soufien began volunteering in the hospital with the Vom group.
But at the same time he frequented the Madonna del Paradiso Sanctuary: “It was the moment when I wanted to know Jesus and so I began a Neocatechumenal journey which in June 2020 led me to receive the sacraments of Christian initiation. The death of my wife marked my life – he explains – but I had a great grace, that of faith. I am fascinated by the charisma of Giacomo Cusmano, the popular missions and the works of charity towards the poor. With my experience as a cultural mediator with those arriving from Africa I have come to know the poverty in the faces and stories of migrants.
This is why I look at the priesthood among the missionaries who are servants of the poor”. (in the photo from left Soufien Giuseppe Zitoun and Don Antonino Favata).
