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THE DENIED FAMILY IL LABIRINTO DI PAROLE
| | GABRIELE CERVI
THE DENIED FAMILY A SOCIAL CRIME DOSSIER and LETTERS TO A BARBARIC STATE (1995-2005)
“….Family is the first school, a permanent school where education to love is not based on sterile notions, but on the incisive power of experience”. John Paul II E mail: cervi.gabriele@libero.it NON TO FORGET SCRIPTA MANENT, VERBA VOLANT
WITNESSES THE INSTITUTE AND THE CULTURE OF EXCLUSION ALEANDRO BALDI, the blind singer Aleandro Baldi, the blind singer who won the Sanremo Festival in 1994 with the song “Passerà”, remember with great pain his twelve years-experience in an institute in Reggio Emilia, which he calls “Gabbione” [“the large cage”](Baldi, 1994). The traces of that bad experience – he says – are still on my body, badly, most of all... We should remark that the institute was considered one of the best in He goes on: “Everything, inside there, made me sad. First of all, the large and hostile surroundings, that I didn’t physically know. After all, it wasn’t difficult to get my bearings in those great rooms, in the corridors, in the wide courtyard. The “educational” methods were violent: They hit us with rulers during the lessons if someone was absent-minded or disturbed the others, they literally took us by the ears and they gave us blows on our heads with knuckles (in Tuscany, this is called a “nocchino”, that means a blow given by the knuckle of the middle finger). But the worst thing was the way they treated us during the refectory: if a guy, for example, didn’t like eating meat at lunch time, the assistant forced him to stay there all the afternoon. Alone, until he decided to eat. No plays, no lessons”. Baldi describes another amazing story: “I remember one day, a boy, who had just arrived from So, to calm him down, they shut him up in the assistant’s toilet. He stayed there all night and thought to be secluded in a cellar, because they told him so. There were mice inside there. We experienced that kind of punishment too. And we believed to be shut up in the basement. Baldi says: “Keeping in the dark those who are born in the dark is a foolish punishment!! The institute was closed in 1976. Baldi also adds: “I had paid for my sins. If I think about those years, I feel a great sense of rage for that repressive atmosphere and that solitary confinement in which we lived, but also for their two-faced attitude, when they said: “It’s for your own good, that’s the way it goes, you have nobody else in the world...”. WITNESSES Children outside of institutes “ Don Oreste Benzi’s appeal at the Italian bishop’s Conference “ Let’s turn religious structures into custody centres for children”. Don Benzi, a priest who usually assumes public and resounding positions (for example, meeting young people at the discos, setting prostitutes free from pimps’ slavery, inviting Pope to go protecting the war zones in Bosnia with his young volunteers for “Colomba” mission), often expresses the wish that “in a few years all the religious institutes will turn into centres for family custody, so that every child can have the right to live in a family”. Don Benzi is conscious this is a delicate question. Most of the institutes for minors or handicapped children, are controlled by religious corporations, more or less related to the Catholic Church. Some of these institutes, especially in the South of the country, live on charity rather than on public subsidies. There are also profit-bearing institutes that must preserve themselves for employment reasons, besides depending on local political interests. In many parts of Some bishops also cover up violations of the 184/83 law, providing that children have the right to have a guardian or a family and that institutes are the last chance. Don Benzi declares to appreciate the devotion of the religious staff towards these kids, but adds that the best institute cannot replace the function of parents. He is supported by CEI and by a passage from Pope’s last encyclical. Will the ecclesial Congress of Vita – 9th September 1995 Nessun commento
FAMILY |
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