Ninety-six years and an entire life spent alongside those who risked being left behind. Christian family he chose Don Antonio Mazzi as “Italian of the Year” 2025, dedicating the cover and an extensive interview to him by Francesco Anfossi in the issue on newsstands this week. A recognition that comes as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Exodus, the community network founded by the priest to welcome and support thousands of vulnerable young people who were lost in the tunnel of drugs and addiction.
For decades one of the most authoritative authors of our weekly magazine, from a young age Don Mazzi dedicated his ministry to suburban parishes and educational centres, intercepting the wounds of an often distracted society. In the Seventies, faced with the drug drama that exploded in the Lambro Park in Milan, his most prophetic intuition was born: Exodusa concrete response to an emergency that many preferred not to see.
It is the same look that emerges today, without attenuation, when he comments on the story of the family who lived in the woods, with the children then removed from their parents in a story that has been in the media for weeks: «I would bring them home tomorrow morning. The human story has become legal and it is wrong. The rules prevailed. It was enough to look for a decent home for them. I wonder why an authentically familiar reality was destroyed in the name of the law.”
Words that reflect a coherent vision, matured over a lifetime of listening and proximity. Even when he talks about parents and adolescents, Don Mazzi invites us not to simplify: «Inattention is not the problem. It is adolescence as a whole that is a delicate and decisive season».
The reasons for our recognition refer precisely to this: «His constant presence in the media, talking about topics that many preferred to ignore: addictions, education, family, loneliness. For his frank, popular voice, never accommodating, always on the side of the least. And for showing that recovery is possible, that humanity is worth more than prejudices and that no child is lost forever.”
Ninety-six years that Don Antonio Mazzi says he doesn’t feel like: “Life has more meaning than time.” A phrase that summarizes his journey and the meaning of an award that not only celebrates a long personal history, but a testimony that is still alive, capable of questioning the conscience of the country.
