It is moved and frankmed Mariella Enoc81 years old, former president of the Child Jesus on the position of Pope Francis of Pope Francis, and today prosecutor at the Valduce hospital in Como. A couple of weeks ago we met her on the occasion of the Jubilee of the sick and even then she had told us, not without reservations, which hoped to “be able to meet him again”. But that in any case, it would remain “forever in my life like all loved ones».
Was he expected?
«That he was bad was evident to all those who wanted to look at him with an objective eye and, also, with eyes full of love. When you love a person you don’t interpret signs, you see true suffering. And so yes, I expected a little. “
How did you react to the news?
«It is a true pain because the relationship between me and he was a very intense relationship. Someone today told me “it was seen that he looked at her with eyes always full of affection”. It is so. Pope Francis allowed me to do extraordinary things and I will always be grateful to him: to work on the Child Jesus as I wanted, to do many things in poor countries who, after all, has always been my desire since – still girl – I enrolled in medicine dreaming of operating in Africa ».
Is there any memory that brings more than others in the heart?
«Bangua’s adventure in Central Africa, for me it was extraordinary always supported by the Pontiff. All phone calls. He told me about the people he had met. Like the vault in Lesbo, which he will then tell in the book Hopwhen he called me to tell me about the girl with the palatoschisi who impressed him. “There is a child here, I can’t leave her, a terrible thing … what should I do?”. I replied: “Father take it and take her here, I’m there at any time”. Or the Siamese twins, always in Central Africa, which he baptized. I called him “The mother wants the baptism so much” and he said to me “Why don’t we take them to Santa Marta?”. They seem only episodes, but in reality they are emblematic of our relationship and what person it was ».
Mariella Enoc, 81 years old, under the Our Lady of Silenzia icon in her office at the Valduce of Como
How would you define the Pope’s relationship with women?
«It was that of Jesus with the women of the Gospel. The Jesuits have a particular way of praying that I like very much. They put themselves in a scene of the Gospel and almost become a character of that scene. Francesco lived inside the Gospel. Who more than Jesus has given space to women? And since he tried to bring the Church back into the Gospel, here, then that he put them back at the center of attention. Certainly it is a path that the Church is taking, overload of centuries of history and traditions. The Holy Father tried to remove all the dust that was above and to bring back to the essentials, including the theme of women. He could not, perhaps, do everything he would have liked. Many times he told me “I started a process” and one of the processes is this, always in a non -social but evangelical logic ».
Will he go to Rome?
“No, I won’t go to Rome because that’s the moment of the powerful, it’s not the time for humble like me.”
The entry into the Synod was perhaps the most evident gesture of opening to women.
«He reported women in their place, of announcers. Let’s think about Easter, it is the women who announce the resurrection. They are a decisive part of the mission of the Church. Beyond, or not, of the ordination. Just think of the figure of the catechists, humble, simple people who have no power, but they are those who announce the Gospel to the little ones of today and to the greats of tomorrow ».
The Madonna del Silenzio who accompanies her wherever it is a gift that has done to Pope Francis?
“Yes, at the entrance of the Apostolic Palace, on the plan where the Pope received, there is the Madonna del Silenzio That he had asked me and that the nuns of the island San Giulio quickly did on a piece of wood. He made many people turn up his nose because, in short, with all the beautiful things that there are a Madonna painted on the wood … under the icon the word “Pray for us”. When he was put there he went to bless it, he repeated “here there is so much need for silence” ».
The silence so central in his magisterium and so protagonist in recent times of his life …
“Pope Francis was a great man of prayer and in silence he found his greatest strength. Then it was communicative, he made jokes and we perhaps remember him more easily like this. I, on the other hand, loved his silences. His last words … they were almost “stolen”, I don’t know how to say. That is, we heard it, we wanted to hear him but we could also feel his silence knowing that inside that silence there were so many things that he would have liked to tell us ».
On the cover, Mariella Enoc and Pope Francis on 6 September 2016 speak of the hospital project in Bangui in Africa (photo Ansa/Observer Romano).
