Little Domenico’s destiny has been fulfilled. The heart of the “warrior”, as mother Patrizia defined him, surrendered to the inevitable and stopped beating in the early hours of this morning. While all of Italy is talking about him, having somehow adopted him as a son of the nation, We too immerse ourselves in the family’s pain. Which is a bit like “our” family, symbol of a people, of all of us, who always fight, even when it seems like there is no more hope.
But we humans, and we Christians even more so, live on hope. It is the fuel of our existence and our toil under the sun. Everyday. And so we too must force ourselves to find reasons to hope on this sad Saturday, in which for Domenico that sun went out forever, but to light up again immediately afterwards with a Light that defeats all darkness. Forever. And this is the first reason for hope: we know by faith that the little warrior is not dead, but lives in the company of God, of the angels, of the saints. And of Maria: who better than her can understand mother Patrizia? He too is a saint among saints. This is not a vain hope, it is the hope rooted in the Resurrection of Christ, which was signified and wonderfully expressed, even through tears, with the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick which the Archbishop of Naples, Msgr. Domenico Battaglia, imparted to him shortly before his little eyes closed to the world. That consecrated oil is precisely the ointment of those who ask for and obtain from God the virtue of fortitude in times of fatigue and extreme weakness. The Christian sacraments that impart grace intercept every moment of life. Even the extreme one.
Another reason comes to us from the testimony of Domenico’s family members. Faced with words, gestures and feelings of hatred, the kindness they showed teaches us all a lesson in great civility: their resilience and acceptance, combined with a demand for justice that will also have to take its course, tell us that even within the greatest pain that can affect us, the death of a child, we can live with dignity. That dignity that we feel and see in them speaks to us of life, even within death. Witness their intention to create a foundation to help victims of medical negligence and children who cannot be transplanted. It will be a way to bring Domenico back to life and give a human meaning, as far as possible, to his story.
One last reason to hope is the public compassion that has manifested itself in so many ways in recent days. We all need it as “social medicine” in a world increasingly populated by serial haters, on social media (above all) but also on the streets and on the many war fronts.
After the uproar that will follow in these days, we hope that silence will then fall on an affair that will most likely still be talked about in courtrooms. This is not the first time a child has died, and sadly it won’t be the last. But we certainly want it to be the last one due to inadequate doctors, whose negligence, however, cannot invalidate their category and the great work that the medical profession does for all of us every day.
