Tears and applause. In the end, in remembering the two brothers who are no longer with us, Cardinal Giuseppe Betori succumbed to true, profound emotion in his farewell mass in Florence. After almost sixteen years and a two-hour liturgy, the strength to show weakness has removed the last doubts that Bishop Giuseppe is not the rigid exponent of the Church of Ruini, as some still persist in considering him, but a pastor among the people , a people, if not tough-necked like the one elected, certainly not easy, which in 2008 was entrusted to him by Benedict XVI. Years in which “to the fragility that always accompanies the life of the Church, were added the weaknesses of my person, for which I am here today to ask forgiveness, for not having lived up to the history of this city, especially your expectations. I know that you love me, as I love you, and that, indulgently, you will not deny me your understanding.”
In front of at least two thousand people, the cardinal who came from Foligno thanked and greeted an entire community, concelebrating the solemn liturgy together with his successor Don Gherardo, the Florentine bishops, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, the monsignors Giovanni Roncari, Stefano Manetti, Giovanni Paccosi and Claudio Maniago, and almost all the diocesan priests, first of all Cardinal Ernest Simoni. In the homily Betori highlighted some points of his episcopate, underlining the characteristics of the cathedral and the space it occupies in the physiognomy of the city: “I have tried to fully make this being a Church immersed in the city, ready to enter its spaces, in dialogue with everything that builds the community of men”.
Citing the poets Mario Luzi and Davide Rondoni, as well as the Holy Mayor Giorgio La Pira, the cardinal spoke of the chair on which the bishop of Florence sits: “What I have tried to indicate in recent years, not always succeeding, seems to me to this place says for itself: measure, balance, harmony, rest, beauty, contemplation and peace are the profound identity, beyond the immediate, instinctive, even polemical and aggressive features, of this city and therefore of the Florentine Church, synthesis of compound tensions “.
His argument hit three marks. Having said of the cathedral and the magnificence of the Cathedral, the diocesan flag was mentioned: “It is indeed the banner of the Risen One, but it is also the insignia of the people. It has always moved me and called me to responsibility to walk steps marked together by Christ and the people , strengthening in me the conviction that the paths of God are no different from the paths of men, when they follow the safe paths that edify them in the truth – he continued – I have not tried to propose my own path, but I have searched to grasp the paths of God in the journey of the people. This is the line traced by our standard: staying among the people, never detaching ourselves from them, even at the cost of some slowdown, but taking care to keep the fabric of the ecclesial fabric firm, avoiding jerks forward, which may arouse some applause but which inexorably also generate injuries”. A line that serves as advice to his successor Don Gherardo, who never took his eyes off his predecessor during the homily.
