The news of the opening of the testimonial phase of the cause for beatification of Don Luigi Giussani, founder of Comunione e Liberazione, represents an opportunity to revisit the history of the movement and its communities, widespread not only in Italy. An original and incisive presence that of CL, looked at with suspicion and open aversion by the secular and left-wing press, in the Seventies and Eighties crossed by terrorism, by violent ideological conflicts, by massive movements of protest.
The book by Mario De Filippis, Ciellini in Arcavacata(Cosenza, Editorial Progetto 2000, 152 pages, very illustrated), reconstructs the formation of a lively, combative Ciellina community in the construction site of the University of Calabria, which inaugurated its first academic year in 1972. Some young researchers, belonging to the movement of Don Giussani, arrive in Calabria to participate in the birth of this important research and training centre, established after a heated national debate among the best political minds of the time (Riccardo Misasi, Giacomo Mancini, Beniamino Andreatta), with the declared purpose of lead the region out of its historical backwardness.
The University of Calabria is located with an Anglo-Saxon campus layout, the first of its kind in Italy, equipped with a residential center that will host students and teachers, and canteen and transport services. A place that brings together young people from this region for the first time, significantly reducing emigration towards traditional university cities, a sociological and cultural experiment of great significance.
Even the Catholic world is interested in the project, Pope Paul VI chooses a personal friend of his, mgr. Aeneas Selisas archbishop of Cosenza, in whose diocese the new university is located, to follow this important youth reality with particular attention.
In the pages of Ciellini in Arcavacata we retrace these years so fruitful and full of promise, through the story of the life of the community, a group of young people on a journey of faith, of testimony, of reading reality. These are young people, sometimes bold like all kids, sometimes unprepared for the challenges posed by the political and cultural debate. In the context of a growing campus, in a region affected by a transformation process that is not always governed in the best way.
A rich array of documents, photos and cards accompanies and helps the reader to enter into years now so distant: who were the first Ciellini (1976-1989) who brought the word of Don Giussani to Arcavacata? How did they know everything about the Russian Samizdat and the Polish Solidarity union? Why were Alpine songs preferred to the joyous Sila songs? Where were the places of the Cosenza charity? What was the ray and who participated in it? And the diakonia? How did the experience of the movement translate into a context like the Calabrian one?
After almost forty years, a recovery of the memory of a significant presence at Unical. The volume of Mario De Filippis, is divided into eight chapters, with notes and illustrations. In addition to the presentation the publisher Demetrio Guzzardi he signed texts, published in the appendix, in which he recalls the experience of solidarity towards the earthquake victims of Irpinia and the recovery of the figure of Don Carlo De Cardonathe priest from Cosenza who in the early years of the twentieth century was the intrepid animator of the Catholic social movement, born after the promulgation
of the Rerum novarum of Leo XIII.
The author of the volume
Mario De Filippis was born in Cosenza in 1961, he graduated in History at the University of Calabria. He is a teacher of literary subjects in high school. He already has several volumes on the political history of the twentieth century in Cosenza to his credit. With the editorial project 2000 he published «An outlawed province?». Moments of the clash between Right and Left in Calabria Citeriore (1999) co-written with Carmen Ambriani and History, society, institutions, faith and popular piety in Marano Marchesato. The parish church of Santa Maria del Carmelo (2000). A freelance journalist, he collaborates with newspapers, periodicals and online sites.
Turin International Book Fair (Lingotto Fiere) – Stand of the Calabria Region (Oval pavilion, U138-V137), Sunday 12 May 2024, 7.00 pm, presentation of the Ciellini volume in Arcavacata, introduced and coordinated by Demetrio Guzzardi (Editorial Director of the 2000 project) , speakers: Carmen Ambriani (Universitas Vivariensis), Rino Giovinco (director of the Bisignano municipal library), Andrea Gualtieri (la Repubblica journalist), Mario De Filippis (author of the essay).
The meeting can be followed live on Facebook page of the Lametino Library System.
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