Paints as he speaks. Stimulated by the questions of Father Antonio Spadaro, Maurizio Pallotta, aka Maupal, is told with simplicity and irony. The same he puts in his designs, “irreverent” and full of hope. His life has changed since, in the aftermath of the election of Pope Francis, inspired by the similarity with his grandfather and the words of the pontiff, he had painted him as a superpope. “I woke up with the photo of that drawing on the cell phone,” he explains. “I didn’t remember I took it. And in fact the photo was not mine, but indicated the first news of the day: my drawing immediately removed from the wall on which I attacked it. The second news concerned Obama ».
“He is an overwhelming artist,” adds Father Spadaro, Undersecretary of the Dicastery for culture and education “and is among the few people who manage to remain themselves. He is a mythical character because he has known and knows how to play this pontificate with a special, unique figure. He knows how to tell stories – because he with the design tells stories – communicating very important, strong, almost burning values. The trait of his design makes you think and feel emotions. And not only because there is artistic expertise, but because, in those images he says a profound truth and makes it grasped to others. He is an artist able to activate thought and also action ».
Meanwhile, Maupal intinge the brushes in the acrylic colors he brought. A yellow background materializes on the large white cardboard, a world that needs care. Maupal draws a flebo, full of those hearts of love that the planet needs. An image that evokes, without explaining it, also the presence of Pope Francis, fragile and strong, who, even as a convalescent, does not stop opposing the rampant hatred using words of hope and encouragement.
In the frame of the fraternal Domus, the chair of welcome, in its third edition, speaks of “hope and welcome, for a fraternal planetary future. Designed to promote the culture of solidarity and the art of the meeting and dialogue, the initiative that is held in Sacrofano (Rome) until March 28, is, explains Milena Pizziolo, of the volunteer association of the Christian social service,” We live as a tiring, but necessary training work »and after the words of Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, patriarch of Jerusalem of the Latins, who came on video from the Holy Land, who invites,” even at this time when it is difficult to speak of hope when everything speaks of destruction and fear “, to” return to the Holy Land because “the Christian community needs your presence, of the presence of pilgrims” Bishop of the Romanian diocese of Oradia, Virgili Bercea: “We hope that the story does not go back,” he underlined speaking of the vying of Ukraine by the Russians. «Memorial sleep makes monsters be reborn. We lived under the influence of the Soviet Union, we were behind the iron curtain and we know what it means, we know that the Russians managed to transform our Romania into a great prison from which no one could come out: the intellectuals of Romania were all imprisoned, the Greek – Catholic church was put out of the bishops, the bishops, the priests, the lay people were arrested “.
Do not forget and act with also provocative gestures, how to host free, added Monsignor Paolo Giulietti. In the Moderated afternoon by Cristiana Caricato, the bishop of Lucca in dialogue with historian Paolo Giuseppe Caucci von Saucken, (pictured) recalled that “at this moment to do things for free is provocative, It makes questions arise, gives a message that has a force that cannot be easily contested. I welcome you for free, hosts you without asking for a fee “, he added,” this language of gratuity is something that touches the ropes of humanity in an objective and indisputable way especially in this historical moment “. Being “ostelieri”, considering that often those who host was a pilgrim hosted in turn, “means continuing to be in some way to be pilgrims by putting themselves in the service. A way of doing that becomes revolutionary ».
Like the words and gestures of Pope Francis, like the stretch of Maupal. In these 38 days of hospitalization of the pontiff, the Jesuit underlined, closing the first day of work with the event “Arts Against Distresscence”, “is that in a complex situation in the world, in which the world order is subverted, in which there are conflicts that never end, the pope’s voice at the bottom is the only moral voice of global impact. The world lives a very difficult situation from which it is difficult to go out if there is no commitment to peace, if the war patterns continue to prevail for which solutions are sought only with weapons, only with war ». And instead, adds Maupal, «The world needs love. For this reason I imagined this work that, even if for reasons of time it is not complete from an aesthetic point of view, wants to express the concept that there is a need for a phleb of love because we are short of humanity. When I see a hospital with children voluntarily bombed it means that we have exceeded the limit. I can understand that the villain can exist, but when this is tolerated there is something wrong, We have lost humanity ». And these words of Maupal, concludes Father Spadaro, “tell us what his art makes us understand immediately with a glance. His art makes us understand what we need desperate. And it is also what we recognize to Pope Francis, whose pontificate Maupal does not stop telling, that is, his ability to remind us that we are human beings ».
