26.04.2024 – 08.26 – 25 April 1974 – 2024. The other festival of the month was celebrated far from the legacies of conflict and ideologies, linked rather to the cult of Catholic pastoral care and the sense of a path that looks to youth education and dialogue with other community souls in the city. They are indeed fifty years celebrated on April 25th by Community of Zion of Trieste, the reality that revolves around the Parish of via Don Minzoni 7 and the “Paolo VI” Oratory, two fiefdoms of Christianity set in the San Vito district, a “good” neighborhood embraced by greenery and bourgeois residences. Here for half a century the Community of Zion has not preached in the desert, on the contrary. Yes, because one of the components of the mission is to echo ideas and themes of his soul and “first actor”, Monsignor Ettore Malnati78 years old, parish priest, teacher, former Vicar for Culture of the Diocese of Trieste, president of the “Studium Fidei” Association, journalist and writer with around sixty works to his credit.
Standard bearer of ecumenism in Trieste, Monsignor Malnati, a person who is in fact often supported more by the rabbi on duty than by any of his brothers. Furthermore, he has never lacked controversy and attacks, a sort of natural gift for those who have worked on the front line, and not just on the altar. The 50 years of “his” community were therefore the pretext for a balance sheet, an analysis of a personal journey and of a city that has always been nestled between prayers, borders, hatred and secularism: “I arrived in Trieste when I was 18 years old – recalls Monsignor Ettore Malnati – I am now 78, I have witnessed local changes but I have always noted a capacity for dialogue, an adult secularism, an attention to the values of ecumenism. In this 50-year journey I believe there have been more lights than shadows, certainly with many trials – claims the Parish Priest of the Church of Our Lady of Sion – I remember the ecumenical commitment, the incessant training and aggregation activity in the Oratory. Not to mention the equally strong and intense experiences lived in the dimension of volunteering during the earthquake of 1976 in Friuli and that in Irpinia in 1980″.
And the shadows? There would, of course, be nested precisely in the Catholic branch: “Catholicism is always open to dialogue and to social reality – attests Mgr. Malnati – but even in the territory there are risks linked to devotionism, a trickle that can lead to fundamentalism and related social problems”.
The fifty community candles have been lit but do not want to be blown out. Monsignor Malnati in fact wanted a celebration as a sign of thanks and memories to be perpetuated within a solemn Holy Mass: “A moment to live with families, young people and those who supported me – concluded Monsignor Malnati – without authority and special invitations, only with a sense of community”.
To seal the celebration, here is a new book, the 65th by Malnati as a writer. The title is “Characters and episodes from the Bible” (Luglio Editore) a work that represents a treasure chest of reflections and which makes use of a simple, intense dedication: “To the Community of Zion, of which I have been and am brother and pastor for fifty years”. Signed Don Ettore. As many still call it, as at the beginning of the journey.
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