Building brotherhood

In the last meeting of the University of Dialogue, which coincided with Forgiveness Day 2024, we met Rosanna Tabasso, new manager of Sermig. We spoke with her about the social and civil function that fraternity can carry out in today's reality.

To build brotherhood you need to be questioned by the world, not shy away from the challenges of your era and know how to create bridges of dialogue.
How is it done?
Since the 1970s we were clear that our political commitment could not be about belonging to a party, but about meeting with all parties with a view to a common good.
Meet, talk, collaborate with everyone on concrete objectives that improve the quality of life of the poorest.
We called it the "line of dashes" because once a collaboration was concluded, an objective was achieved, everyone took back their freedom, waiting for other objectives and other convergences.
In this process we have never failed to involve the institutions, the primary interlocutor for any action that has the most vulnerable at its centre. It is the meeting that improves the quality of life, not the clash. A diversity of positions, like any diversity, is an asset for everyone if the spirit is truly one of seeking a common good. We have always met and talked with people of all sides, of every ideology, political affiliation because they are people, they are souls.
We do not hide the fact that dialogue is complex to achieve, but it is always worth trying and the key is a look of goodness towards each other, hearts and minds free from personal interests and guided by goodness. It is a journey that never ends, at every stretch of history it must be taken up again and must always be experienced. All this is also compatible with the commitment of some of us within some political parties.
We encourage the political commitment of young people as a service to the people and the common good.

What can help you overcome difficulties and what seems impossible? Especially in a world like today's?
Every time has its challenges that must be recognized and faced with the same enthusiasm. At the beginning there were bricks to find, walls to peel, manual work... We gathered on Tuesday evenings and after prayer Ernesto asked everyone for an hour of manual work and everyone participated!
As we did this work we grew in motivation, in the belief that we were doing something good. The project took shape within us and we rooted ourselves in the good.
Today it is no less difficult. The bricks are in place, the walls are inhabited spaces but the needs of the people are great, the struggles that we see in us and around us still push us to open up, to move forward. If you have thousands of mouths to feed, people to care for, if you have people looking for answers to the non-sense of their life, if you live immersed in hunger, hunger for bread, hunger for meaning, hunger for God... how can you close yourself off, hold back?
We know who we do it for! And now we are a brotherhood, we are thousands of volunteers who help, we are not alone and together we can do our part.

What does it mean to truly welcome a person?
In Sermig's rule it is written "The problem of the other who becomes mine". The other is always to be known, to be understood, and to be welcomed as he is. In the meeting the unit of measurement is not me and the other who must adapt but on the contrary it is always the other. With this attitude, a reciprocity is then established which also teaches us to welcome each other.
The other is often an unexpected, unplanned, unknown meeting, for which there was no pre-established space.
And it often changes your life because it raises the question "What can I do for you?".
In this way everyone's availability expands and we also grow as a community. At the Arsenale we had the intuition not to choose to help one category of people and only those, but to remain open to those who approach us. We certainly cannot help everyone, but often when faced with a person, with their problem, we understand that we are experiencing an appointment not only with that person, but also with history, with God.
Over time this process has given us a great wealth of experiences, a 360° view. It is a mentality that also involves us internally, it is not only an approach with the poorest, but also among us. Fraternity is this attention to the other with whom I live, always different from me but complementary.
In fact, our first and great test for hospitality is precisely brotherhood: it is much "simpler" to welcome a homeless person who sleeps on the street than to choose to welcome his brother or sister and choose to be patient and continue to build with her.

The arsenal has been able to welcome people near and far. A real window onto the world. What is the method for living brotherhood?
In 1964, the first formation of Sermig was taken care of by the distant poor who taught us. When we opened the Arsenale we learned to recognize them here, close to us. The Arsenal has remained an open door to the world, where we have continued to give voice to the world's poor with development projects, humanitarian expeditions, meetings, travel, knowledge. Then the door opened for the neighbors too, with the same spirit, the same motivations, the same determination. Some helped us to understand others and it became a method: welcoming the other in the complexity of his life, his culture, religion, origin without judging, marginalizing.
The unexpected is our great gym, the courtyard is our great school, we all grew up in the courtyard school. We make a program and then modify it to accommodate those who knock on the door, day and night.
For God there are no near and far. It is a fact of love, if we train our hearts to welcome the other, to feel that they are our brothers, to put their needs at the center before ours, then we form authentic bonds of brotherhood, and distance is no longer a problem but a 'opportunity. We are very good friends with Dom Luciano Mendes de Almeida (editor's note: Brazilian Jesuit bishop of Mariana, 1930-2006) and yet the Atlantic Ocean separated us because he lived in Brazil, but he felt part of our fraternity, and we felt he was part of ours family. And with how many others does this happen!

Sermig has crossed paths with many people, very different from each other. The friendship with a non-believer like the philosopher Norberto Bobbio is an example of this. How do you experience brotherhood with people with very different ideas from your own?
First of all, Ernesto taught us that we trample on the steps of the wise until we wear them out and when we find a person of value we frequent them to learn.
We looked for Bobbio to compare our ideas with his. The difference between him and us was evident: we believers, he didn't, he was a man of thought, we were people who learned by doing...
We have learned to dialogue, we have learned to compare. The University of Dialogue that arises from doubt comes from that comparison. Many did not like to associate dialogue with doubt, but our doubt never undermined certainties, on the contrary it gave roots to motivations.
Ernesto and Norberto Bobbio built a path of friendship because they put not their ego at the center but a reasoning that was open to the good of others.
The difference in faith was never a problem: it was like climbing the same mountain from two different sides. What Bobbio wrote always strikes me: «Look at the things that unite and not at those that divide. Bridges, not walls."

How can spirituality and faith broaden the idea of ​​human brotherhood?
I remember that at the beginning the real transition from being a voluntary association to a fraternity in the Church was to truly put the Word of God at the centre.
Ernesto leaves us a great legacy, he eats the Bible continuously, and what about us? Let's go back to truly putting the Word at the center of our lives and the Spirit will make us understand the paths to take... let's trust his promise, the Arsenal confirms to us that God is a faithful God!
Ernesto wrote 15 years ago For a Barefoot Church, it is a good summary of our experience of brotherhood that speaks to everyone, believers and non-believers. It is an experience of the Church having to "displace itself" (leave its certainties) to walk with those "displaced" by life. Fraternity is not a utopia but the dream of God who, when he finds a willing heart, gives birth to something new, this is what happened to our fraternity. A life that takes the Gospel seriously and tries to embody it becomes a light, and the light cancels out the darkness of many lives that it brings together, whether they become believers or not, but they will certainly begin to change, to convert, they may come to faith or not , but in reality they will build brotherhood, in reality they will focus on the needs of many poor people, in reality they will give back what they are and what they have... in short, in reality they will live the Gospel. How many volunteers who are not close to the faith we have seen change at the Arsenale, it is not certain that they have all come to faith, but "from my point of view" they help me to be Christian, they give me an example of the Gospel lived and incarnated.

By the editorial team
NPFOCUS
NP August / September 2024