“Late yesterday evening, in his home in Milan, the Magnificent Rector Professor Franco Anelli tragically passed away in circumstances still under investigation”. Thus a laconic statement reported on the website of the Catholic University. “With deep dismay, the community of the Catholic University – he continues – and of the Agostino Gemelli IRCCS University Polyclinic Foundation, to which he dedicated his work and his entire life, gathers together in mourning and prayer, expressing the deepest condolences to his mother and his loved ones.” Franco Anelli, 61 years old, from Piacenza, was expiring in his role as rector of the university, just in recent days the procedures for identifying his successor had opened.
According to what has been learned, Anelli took his own life in his home in Milan. “I share in the pain of the Catholic University and the Agostino Gemelli IRCCS Polyclinic Foundation for the tragic passing of the Magnificent Rector, Prof. Franco Anelli. In this moment of dismay, on behalf of the Italian Episcopate, I express condolences to his mother, to her loved ones and to the entire community of the University and the Polyclinic, to which he dedicated his existence. I assure the prayers of our Church, entrusting dear Prof. Anelli to the mercy of the Father”. We read it in a note from the president of the CEI and archbishop of Bologna, card. Matteo Zuppi.
THE CONDORENCES OF THE MAYOR TARASCONI AND THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL – “We are dismayed, shocked. The sudden and premature death of Franco Anelli, rector of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, is a tragedy that profoundly affects not only the local and national academic world of which he was one of the most illustrious and esteemed exponents, but which affects and shakes everyone us and the entire Piacenza community to which Professor Anelli belonged. We were working together and in close contact, sharing the vision of Piacenza as a university city; a vision that had led us, with all the rectors of the local universities, to sign the “University Protocol” last February of which Franco Anelli was proud. Franco Anelli was in love with Piacenza, his city, and there was no occasion, even recently, like at the Dies Academicus a few weeks ago, in which he did not underline it and demonstrate it with the sympathy and affability that characterized him. He has always been particularly attached to the Piacenza headquarters of the Cattolica, which boasts seventy years of existence in our territory and he demonstrated it every day with the passion, affection, kindness and availability that have always distinguished him. Piacenza and the whole of Italy lose a great man. We express our deepest condolences for his passing and we join his family, his closest friends, the academic community – colleagues and students – in a heartfelt embrace”. It is the mayor’s message of condolence Katia Tarasconiof the University councilor Francesco Brianzi and of the entire municipal council.
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