“It was a strong gesture and for me also painful because the 10 mass is the mass of children and for me children are a sacrament”. Don Maurizio Patriciello did not use words, immediately after the intimidation suffered on Sunday morning in Caivano. During the celebration, a man approached the altar and handed him a handkerchief: inside there was a bullet.
The parish priest of the Green Park, for years on the front line against the Camorra and degradation, explained to journalists that the biggest pain is that “this happened in front of the children, while he came to do communion. I really didn’t expect this ».
Man and arrest
The author of the gesture is a 75 -year -old, already known to the police and with diagnosed psychiatric problems. Despite this, he was arrested by the men of the escort and by the carabinieri. The elderly said he was “sent” to make that delivery. “We must understand who sent him and why,” said Don Patriciello. It is not excluded that the cartridge case was connected to the “spread” on Saturday evening, when a group of men aboard the scooters exploded several gunshots a few steps from the parish.
The institutions alongside the parish priest
Solidarity was not long in coming. The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella sent his “closeness and solidarity after the serious intimidating gesture” to Don Patriciello. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni defined the episode “cowardly and criminal” and ensured that “the state will not take any step back”.
Even the Minister of the Interior Matteo Plantedosi telephoned the priest to express his closeness to him and heralded a visit to Caivano. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry has ordered the sending of additional patrols in the neighborhood and the raising of the protection measures for the parish priest. Today the Provincial Committee for Public Order and Security will meet, with the agenda on the agenda the violence at the Green Park.
A signal of the Camorra
Don Patriciello had written a few hours earlier, on social networks, net words against crime: «The two horribles spread a few steps from my parish are to say an important thing: the organized underworld has received, in recent months, a very hard blow. Foolish, do not delude yourself. You have a breath on your neck ».
The gesture of the bullet, therefore, seems to take on the traits of a underworld response. The words of Pina Castiello, Undersecretary of the Presidency of the Council, present in the Church, also witnessed this: «What happened is gathered and shameful. An exponent of local crime, confusing among the faithful, delivered that bullet to Don Patriciello then vanishing quickly ».
“It won’t be left alone”
Messages of closeness came from all over the political arch. «The underworld will not be able to silence those who defend legality and justice. Fear? Never, “wrote Matteo Salvini. For Giuseppe Conte it was “a shameful episode”, while the mayor of Naples Gaetano Manfredi stressed that “threats will not stop his work”.
The prefect of Naples Michele Di Bari guaranteed that “the honest citizens of the Green Park, which represent the vast majority, and Don Patriciello will not be left alone. The state is present and will continue to be “.
The bullet delivered to the altar, just at the most sacred moment of the children’s mass, remains a disturbing signal. But Don Patriciello does not seem intent on selling. And once again he entrusted his answer to the words: clear, simple, without fear.
