Don Severino Dianich, last witness to a great story

Second ten days of April, the sun is shining, a group of people from Fiume in the streets of Pisa determined to meet an important witness to their history. The path to take is not always easy: whether to focus on the years between the two world wars, to the post-war period or to consider what happened afterwards, in the exodus and up to today, as part of the history of a dispersed people. All moments that cannot be missed and all worth saving. With religious respect. The group agrees on the answer.
Why Pisa? To meet Don Severino Dianich, the famous theologian, after a necessary introduction.
After leaving Fiume in 1947, Monsignor Ugo Camozzo, the last Italian bishop of Fiume, became archbishop of Pisa – elected after a period of waiting at the Seminary of Venice. Since he considered Fiume his city of choice (he was born in Milan), he let the exiled parish priests, now scattered throughout Italy, know: “I am in Pisa, if you come I will be happy to host you… because here we need ministerial additions, therefore you who are seminarians will come and the priests will also come, those who are already in service.” A phrase collected from the testimony of Monsignor Egidio Crisman, “fiuman pathoco”, before he left us a few years ago. He loved to express himself exactly like this, mixing language with dialect, as many of the priests who reached Monsignor Camozzo must have done.

But how many were there?

Again Monsignor Crisman: “The old canons of the Cathedral of Fiume moved forward, arriving with the intention of giving what they were able to give. Meanwhile, we young people, having finished our studies, were consecrated by Camozzo, we were a good group of priests, including the ‘veceti’, around 25, all from Fiume”. He also sent us a list which we consulted with Don Dianich: Giovanni Cenghia, Clemente Crisman, Egido Crisman, Alberto Cvecich, naturally Severino Dianich, Vittorio Ferian, Gabriele Gelussi, Floriano Grubesich, Mario Maracich, Rino Peressini, Fulvio Parisotto, Giuseppe Percich, Oscar Perich, Ariele Pillepich, Francesco Pockaj, Antonio Radovani, Giovanni Regalati, Aldo Rossini, Arsenio Russi, Janni Sabucco, Giovanni Slavich, Giacomo Desiderio Sovrano, Giuseppe Stagni and Romeo Vio, from Veglia Mario Maracich.
Giovanni Paolo Benotto, current archbishop of Pisa, remembers them with particular affection: “We called them the ‘pretich’ because of their very particular surnames”, he says with affection. One senses that their Italian was also different, it was certainly not the Tuscan of the Pisans and a few words of the Rijeka dialect, here and there, emerged curious and spiteful.
We imagine him, almost with emotion, as we prepare to reach the place where Don Severino Dianich lives, in a beautiful annex in the garden of a retirement home run by nuns in the center of Pisa. “He is waiting for you”, this is how a nun welcomes us. He is at her desk, smiling and friendly, the mutual sympathy is immediate. Franco Papetti and Diego Zandel illustrate the new course of the Association of Fiumani Italiani nel Mondo, we talk about the Voce di Fiume which Don Dianich follows with interest. We all remember the exodus from Fiume together, each with particular reminiscences. “I was just a boy – says Don Severino – when war was declared in 1940, after a few months I would have started first grade”. Don Severino was one of the seminarians of Pisa, the last living witness of the group of “pretich” from Fiume who served the community in the surrounding parishes with an enthusiasm that everyone still remembers. And it is he, a great theologian, who is trying today to make people understand, young people in particular, that the parish priest is not an untouchable figure, he is an individual to whom one can turn as an equal. He declared this at a meeting a few months ago. “In my opinion – he declares – it has weighed and still weighs heavily, even on young priests, indeed, for them it is even accentuated, that inveterate habit whereby the priest is considered a ‘different’ person, with something more unattainable, because he is a sacred person. All this causes enormous damage, as I also noticed during the conference in my working group. Two African priests, for example, said how no one in their country ever dares to criticize a priest. Here priests are highly criticized, but in the media, very little face to face…”.
An observation that reveals a lot about the modernity of his approach achieved in years of direct involvement in the great and constant change in the world that theology follows, interprets, tries to explain and adapts to. All this mediated by the strength of his personality, by the fact of being extremely authoritative because he has the rare gift of going straight to the heart of the issues, with a few well-directed words. Fiume nature? We smile, as if it were a joke, a joke, but with a conscious foundation of truth.

Life after the exodus

The visit proceeds quickly, we focus on life after the exodus and the years in the seminary. Don Dianich spent a lot of time in Rome, the first periods as a freshman at the Gregorian University: “In those years – he recalls – it was difficult to approach good theological literature without knowing French and German. Thus began an adventure, both in studies and in the many experiences that Rome offered.” Over the decades, he has witnessed the great transformations of society and the church, since that council of October 1962 which he recalls in his book “My century is too short”. Reading it in one go because it is compelling, you realize that it will need to be picked up again and analyzed several times because it contains truths that are difficult to reach by following mere information. Don Severino, an internationally renowned theologian, is a witness of the short century, he has traveled all over the world enjoying a privileged observatory, within theological parameters, with a rare analytical ability and the possibility of glimpsing changes and new hopes.
And only after many words, the real reason for AFIM’s visit to Pisa is revealed: on 7 November, in the city where Bishop Camozzo and the 25 Fiumani religious went into exile, a conference will take place with renowned scholars, in the presence of Archbishop Paolo Giovanni Benotto, by Don Severino Dianich himself, by Marko Medved, a historian from Fiume, professor of theology, who is about to publish a volume on the last Italian bishop of Fiume, Monsignor Ugo Camozzo, by other scholars from Pisa and, last but not least, of the parishioners who met the Rijeka priests and who faced a long period of interaction and growth with them. Another way of highlighting Rijeka’s excellence in the world.

Moments of recomposition

At the moment of saying goodbye, the ritual hugs, to underline the value of an indelible day which will now allow us to reach new goals of memory, together. On November 7th and throughout the morning in the Bishop’s Hall made available by the Archbishop, the debate will take place, open to all those who wish to participate, to learn, to testify, to be aware that these moments of recomposition of memory and of people are fundamental for anyone: a return to the large family of exiles and those left behind.