Don Matteo Balzano while celebrating Mass in the mountains
Thousands of people participated on Monday evening in Cannobio in the prayer vigil in suffrage of Don Matteo Balzano, The young parish priest who died suicide last Saturday. Tuesday morning, in the Collegiate of San Vittorethe funeral celebrated by the Bishop of Novara, Franco Giulio Brambilla, While at 3 pm a suffrage mass will be celebrated in Grugliasco where the young priest will be buried.
A story that has shaken all of Italy and pushed many people to dedicate a thought to the young priest on social media. Don Giovanni Berti, Priest of the diocese of Verona famous for the cartoons with which he tells the Gospel, he dedicated one to the deputy parish priest of Cannobio portrayed while he is welcomed in paradise and God tells him “Come Don Matteo, I will listen to you for eternity”.
The theme of stress and the Born Out of priests, especially the younger ones, is at the center of the reflections of these days. “We have to listen more,” he said Father Massimo Fusselli, General Minister of Friars Minor.
On the Sir, the CEI Agency, the reflection of Giorgio Ronzoni, Paduan parish priest and teacher of pastoral theology at the Triveneto theological faculty. Starting from the case of Cannobio, Ronzoni recalled that he had led more than twenty years ago a “Research on the burnout of the priests of my diocese. The results were published in various magazines and in the end they merged into a book that I edited: Burn, don’t burn (Edizioni Messaggero Padova). The research then had a lot of resonance: in 2018 it was even mentioned by José Tolentino Mendonça (created cardinal the following year) when he held the spiritual exercises to Pope Francis. A few months ago a journalist called me to ask me updated data on this issue, but I had to answer them with a little shame that no others have been conducted for these research in Italy. The French bishops in 2020 courageously published the results of the “study on the health of priests in activity”, without hiding problems such as a certain abuse of alcohol by two fifths of the clergy. In Italy, however, he has so far preferred not to undertake research of this magnitude “, writes Ronzoni,” it is likely that the reasons are manifold, and certainly not linked to indifference: perhaps a certain fear, perhaps the belief that the daily pastoral experience already allows a sufficient knowledge of reality, perhaps a minor trust in research in a socio-religious area. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that pastoral theology, without an adequate database, risks remaining even more to impressions than evidence. And this, today, appears as a lack to fill with humility and courage ».
Ronzoni recalls that his research “conducted at zero cost, highlighted a fact that is anything but surprising: the discomfort widespread among the priests in the first years of the ministry. Switching from the life of seminary – regular and regulated – to that of the parish is a change that can put in crisis. After all, even some more tested confreres suffer a lot when they change the assignment: the more those who start a complex life as is that of the priest today. Furthermore, let’s not forget that young priests are priests – that is, elderly – only sacramentally: for the rest they are young, and if suicide is the second cause of death among young people, after road accidents, there will be a reason. Is a young priest different from his peers? Yes, but not too much. Like those of his age, he can hear the need for confirmation by the superiors and the faithful and to obtain them he can get to spend overall, Maybe with the fear – unfounded, of course, but for him real – that he is no longer appreciated if he cannot reach certain performances. It will be possible to object that a man of God should not depend on the judgment of others, responding only to the Lord and his conscience. But everyone is what he is, and to get to be what he should, if he ever comes to us, first he must learn to know himself by crossing many evidence and taking seriously care of his own formation. Not everyone makes it: someone abandons the ministry, someone comes to terms with a mediocrity that is anything but golden, someone feels overwhelmed by the shame of not being up to their ideals, Someone else falls into depression or gets sick ».
On the matter it also intervened Monsignor Massimo Angelelli, Head of the CEI office for the pastoral care of health: “What made me really bad in the history of Matteo,” he said interviewed by the ANSA, “is That when one chooses such an extreme road obviously thinks that it is the best solution at that moment, other scenarios are not taken into consideration. The message I would like to pass instead is that another option is always possible, nobody thinks he is stuck, that there are no alternatives, an alternative is always possible, I want to clarify it clearly. This office, “explained Angelelli,” has been paying attention to the theme of mental health for at least 9 years, collaborates with us a table composed of about fifteen professionals, psychiatrists and psychologists, for us it is an evident theme, we have dealt with it a lot in the Covid period while the last report of 2024 has focused on the concept of solitude: what emerges from our Observatory is a social context that tends to isolate and that generates isolations or isolations, people do not feel adequate to the models that are presented. It is a very vast phenomenon in the youth world and even religious and religious are part of this world, they are not disruptive from this same context. Often – he explains again – there is a lack of acceptance of one’s fragility and the difficulty in corresponding to performing models but being fragile does not mean being defective “.
The parish priest of Caivano also spoke on the affair of Don Matteo, Father Maurizio Patriciello, with a reflection on Happen: “Spiritual life – not only, life in general – is a battle”, he wrote, “the Church has always recommended to Christians, and in particular to the consecrated, a spiritual father, a sort of strategist who knows the battlefield well, who knows how to accompany you in the meanders of faith when the asphalted road becomes first a dusty path, then a real desert. Everything about men concerns priests, even if in a different way. Can a priest fall into depression? Certainly. It would be an injustice if this dark cage was to lay on anyone except on him. Can you give in to temptation? Certain, The Church has never denied it. But, like anyone, it can revive and resume loving and serving God and neighbor with major lena and enthusiasm ».
