“I am 87 years old but I still feel young,” Don Franco Monterubbianesi wrote in one of his many letters, to which he entrusted thoughts, reflections and projects for the future. Yes, because, still on the 90 -year threshold, the priest from the Marche region, founder of the community of Capodarco, was an unstoppable river of ideas. And he looked forward, to the future, imagining new paths and initiatives in favor of disabled people and their families, the most vulnerable, of the invisibles.
Don Franco Monterubbianesi left on May 27 in Fermo, three days before turning 94 years old. Frontier priest, he has dedicated his whole life to the people who live on the margins of society, starting with those who have a disability. At Christmas of 1966, in the years of the great social, political and cultural ferment that he would have led to the sixty -eight, he who had started his medical studies and then abandon them and follow the priestly vocation, He took away from the assistance institutes and took thirteen disabled people with him, myodes. He went to live with them in a semi-abandoned villa on the Marche hills, in Capodarco di Fermo, giving life to the first nucleus of the Capodarco community. An authentic social revolution, based on the culture of inclusion, aimed at returning dignity and rights to disabled people, to promote their autonomy, in years in which disability in Italy was still subject to a purely welfare vision. In 1970 more than 100 people already lived in the community. In that year the first three weddings of couples of people with disabilities were celebrated. Almost a scandal, for the mentality of that era, as Don Franco himself remembered a few years ago.
Over the years, the Capodarco community from the Marche extended to other parts of Italy, becoming a network, in 1972 the community of Rome was born, where Don Monterubbianesi moved to live in 1974. In 1978 in Grottaferrata, on the Castelli Romani, the Social Cooperative Agriculture Capodarco was founded, one of the pioneering experiences of social agriculture in Italy, model recognized in our country and abroad. In 2005 Don Franco himself went to live in the family home at the cooperative. In the meantime, in 1994, the presidency of the National Community Association of Capodarco was taken by Don Vinicio Albanesi.
Until the last, Don Franco has never stopped thinking about disabled people and their families: one of his great concerns was the “after us”. His commitment and the community was important in giving impulse to law no. 112 of 2016 which regulates, in fact, the complex problem of disabled people who remain without a family and without a network of relationships and support. With his visionary spirit combined with a great tenacity and determination, supported by an unwavering faith and a profound sense of social justice, Don Monterubbianesi contributed to a radical change of mentality in Italy: He freed his disabled from a pietistic vision and promoted their self-determination skills by launching the idea of family homes, of the communities-housing, Community coexistence models that respond to the autonomy needs of those who live there; stated the principle that the disabled can and have to work, They are able to emancipate, live relationships, love each other, get married, build a family. Being people and citizens like all the others, with the same rights. This is the extraordinary legacy of Don Monterubbianesi.
Today the communities that are part of the Capodarco network are thirteen in various regions of Italy, four abroad, in Cameroon, Ecuador, Albania and Kosovo. They are engaged in numerous sectors, from mental health to drug addictions, from professional training to support for the elderly, from rehabilitation to youth discomfort.
