Don Lorenzo Milani
by Gianni Gennari
He has been dead for 48 years, but he still causes discussion, for or against: it is difficult to remain indifferent towards him. They buried him - he wanted it - in a small almost abandoned cemetery in a forgotten village in the Tuscan Mugello, Barbiana, but many have not forgotten him. His name was Lorenzo Milani. Born in Florence to a family of Jewish intellectuals in 1923. He studied as an artist, he knew the world, he too got engaged. Nothing he does is superficial, but at twenty he discovers Jesus Christ, becomes Catholic and goes to the Seminary. At 24 he is a priest, he works as a priest with his people, but he also sets up a school for his illiterate "his people" in Calenzano. Normal? No! It happens that this is why he disturbs everyone: priests and lay people, Christian Democrats and communists, bourgeois and politicians.
After seven years by superior order the archbishop, pushed by many right-thinking people, including and above all "devotees", confines him to a small mountain village, Barbiana: 100 inhabitants, scattered among the woods. He persists and is also a priest, and, above all, doing popular school, 365 days a year, 12 hours a day. In 1958 he published a book that caused a sensation, “Pastoral Experiences”. The bishop of Camerino, Frattegiani, who wrote the preface to it, was deposed and sent to Rome, and the book was placed on the Index. They say a lot about him, even slander, and therefore even Pope John considers him a bit reckless... He continues, in Barbiana: in 1965 he writes a letter to the military chaplains, remembering the non-violent Jesus and defending conscientious objection. They tried him in the State Court. With his boys, in 1967 he wrote another letter, “To a professor”. He published it in May, but on June 26 he died of cancer. It seems it's all over. And yet it begins then. It also happened, 2000 years ago, to an Other. '68 arrives and many talk about him: biographies, anthologies, discussions, degree theses... Until today.
What was his secret? Who knows... Refined culture, but placed at the service of the people, critical and self-critical but constructive rigor, absolute coherence, Tuscan and evangelical Christian clarity, integrity of convictions and a sharp tongue like few others, capable of translating emotions and communicating contagious ideas. They said that its pedagogy was outdated, but the few positive reforms that have been made, in the school, have walked on its tracks. Has his struggle to free the poor from subjugation, first cultural and then everything else, been overcome? Today 10% of the population owns 90% of the resources, 99% of the media, uses 95% of the information for themselves and controls 100% of the power. It was non-violent, but with the patience that was both sweet and terrible of someone who sows hope where no one has ever planted it. He was one of those, few, who lived only to overthrow the world so that it is the home of all free men, back straight and forehead high: in front of others and also in front of God, who is very happy about it. He indicated his secret: having discovered the living Jesus Christ in each and every one.
Priest, above all priest of Jesus Christ, and thus also teacher, intellectual, tender and paternal, yet always demanding and authoritative with the little ones, dangerous agitator for the powerful and satisfied, implacable enemy of all truffisms willing to compromise, and of careerists, ecclesiastics and lay people. He took the Gospel and his Church seriously, never the clerical system, which in fact threw him in Barbiana until the end. There he found his boys, invented his school, was a teacher and a priest all the way. Like few others, he imitated the poor Christ and true master. When he died, his executioners, the world and the Church seemed to win. But God plays as he wants. Ten years later the Italian Catholic newspaper commemorated him with honour, and on that same day, 25 June 1977, almost an implicit message, and on the same page announced that Cardinal Florit, who certainly had not understood him, was leaving Florence due to age. Giovanni Battista Montini, even from afar, had respected and helped Don Lorenzo, even concretely. Here's the aftermath: almost 40 years later the Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, Piovanelli, his schoolmate, says that Don Milani is "a glory of the Florentine Church".
If anyone thinks and says that he is outdated, go and reread his writings, which continue to appear, or his splendid biography, “Dalla parte dell'ultimo”, by Neera Fallaci, of Rizzoli. If he still insists, it means that he has something to hide: stones hurt, especially if they are thrown straight by a Tuscan priest who loved God above all else and his children as equals. Pope Francis, among the people and the little ones, has something that seems to come from him too. Certainly his way of being a priest was "outgoing" towards the least. Certainly the theological nucleus of his life as a priest was "you did it to me" in Matthew 25. Certainly Don Lorenzo Milani already lived the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. It's difficult for them to make him a "saint" down here: too cumbersome and perhaps still too close, but it happens to many, reading his "letter to Pipetta", that they can't finish without a few tears... Seeing is believing!