«An act of violence like what happened in the school today it truly leaves us dismayed and at the same time challenges us profoundly». There is dismay in the Ligurian town of La Spezia where on January 16, nineteen-year-old Abanoub Youssef died, stabbed in the abdomen by a classmate at the entrance to the ‘Domenico Chiodo’ professional institute. The same one that animates the words of the Bishop of Spezia, Sarzana, Brugnato Luigi Ernesto Palletti.
«The school environment has always been, and is, a fundamental educational and cultural point of reference. Events like what happened today should obviously not discredit the work and attention that school staff dedicate to children on a daily basis.
The desire for justice, legitimate and dutiful, must be able to find prompt, careful and effective responses to guarantee safety. Obviously the desire for revenge must not prevailbut rather the work of an authentic reconstruction that allows the affirmation of those human values marked by respect, understanding and dialogue. Values that are the basis of civil coexistence and the common good.
Facts like this invite everyone to reflect deeply: Civil institutions, Church, educational agencies, families and individual citizens. At this moment, however, I believe it is our duty to maintain a profound silence and to invite every believer to intense prayer.
I therefore wish to express my closeness to the victim’s family and to all those who were involved in these events, in the hope that what happened will never happen again.”
