The year was 1752 and the Rector of the Archbishop’s Seminary of Benevento – for 10 years – was Msgr. Giovanni De Vita.
As demonstrated by its coat of arms walled in the courtyard of the Seminary, it had been founded in April 1567 by Cardinal Giacomo Savelli, Archbishop of Benevento, after the Council of Trent had established that “each bishop should have a Seminary near the cathedral for the ecclesiastical education”.
The Rector who ruled its fate in 1752 – Msgr. De Vita – belonged to a Benevento family. A student of the Piarists and Dominicans, he had completed his studies in Naples, obtaining a doctorate in law.
Ordained a priest, he was a canon of the cathedral and later, at the age of 34, he was appointed Rector of the Seminary, as well as lawyer of the Archbishop’s Curia.
Cardinal Francesco Landi had sat on the Benevento chair for eleven years, but in 1752 he resigned and retired to Rome.
As soon as he took office in the new seat, his successor, Francesco Pacca from Benevento, received numerous letters against the Rector De Vita, so much so that the archbishop, “moved by scruple, came to the decision to appoint another Rector as superintendent to De Vita in the person of Domenico Gampensa, archpriest of the Land of Gildone” (Gregorio Pistelli, Life of the Servant of God G. De Vita), a small and forgotten village in lower Molise.
The choice will prove to be quite reckless. At Gampensa, I use to operate in a modest one parish of a small town located on the borders of the Benevento archdiocese, will lack that spirit to direct one of the most popular and prestigious seminaries of the Catholic Church.
The supervisor “absolutely arranged and ordered everything, while the seminarians placed themselves under his direction, abandoning De Vita” (G. Pistelli, op.cit.), who – despite pressure from friends and relatives – did not want to leave the Seminar.
He loved to repeat: “I am happy to suffer everything patiently for the love of God.”
Only when they explicitly told him that the archbishop wanted him to renounce his position, De Vita obeyed and left the seminary, not without having greeted all the seminarians and told them “in hoc loco nullius ordo, sed senpiternus horror inhabitabit”. Pistelli comments: «It didn’t take long for the prediction to come true.»
Indeed, shortly afterwards, the new Rector with his authoritarian behavior and carrying out real abuses of power, gave the young people reason to turn against him and his ministers.
Federico Torre wrote that “the boarders were in an uproar, with serious scandal and, without hearing any reason, having barred the door they did not want to open it”.
They were the forerunners of the student occupations that would take place two centuries later.
Meanwhile, the Rector was forced to hide and then even flee at night.”so as not to fall victim to the fury of the seminarians”.
The good Gampensa took refuge in the safe shell of Gildone, resuming his quiet life as a parish priest.
His adventure at the helm of the Benevento Seminary ended in the worst possible way, which – thus – was in complete chaos.
The old Rector was rudely removed, the new one fled at night.
This unfortunate situation deeply affected Pacca, as Archbishop and as a Beneventan.
The vicar general of the archdiocese, Msgr., was sent to quell the tumult. Piscitelli, but the seminarians didn’t even open the door.
Canons of the cathedral, qualified ecclesiastics and lay personalities were brought to the Seminary, but no results were obtained.
The Archbishop then understood that only the old Rector – Msgr. De Vita – could have normalized the situation and summoned him to the Curia, asking him for his opinion peacemaking intervention. He accepted the assignment and, after praying in the cathedral, went to the Seminary and asked for the door to be opened for him.
As soon as the seminarians recognized the voice of their old superior, they let him in.
«As if the Angel of Peace had come – writes Pistelli – all the boarders, descending into the courtyard, began to give vent to the feelings of their souls and the affections of
their hearts. They called him their liberator from the many tyrannies they had suffered and from the mistreatment inflicted on them by the Rector Gampensa.»
De Vita led them into the academy room, extinguishing the fire of their indignation with appropriate words. And since it was time for the walk, he led the seminarians, led by him, out along the Via Magistrale, where they were welcomed with shouts of “hurray” from passers-by, satisfied with the re-establishment of peace in the Seminary.
GENNARO IAVERONE
