Piersanti Mattarella, Craftsman of Peace

Dear Piersanti,
death has met you
and made you alive forever
through tears
of your loved ones.
You live
and you are an example for us
you are for us the certainty that good
no one can kill him.

Ernesto Olivero

A Craftsman of Peace is someone who works with courage, competence, determination and talent to create the conditions for a more just coexistence, where peace becomes possible.
In the civil and political sphere it means: guaranteeing transparency in public affairs, widespread economic well-being and social justice to all citizens. ln this sense,
Piersanti Mattarella was an authentic craftsman of peace, a martyr of peace.
In the 1970s, he had the courage and moral strength to undertake a policy of reform to free Sicily from the lethal connivance between the mafia and politics.
An example of responsibility and determination, legality and coherence, ethics and politics.

Piersanti Mattarella was born in Castellammare del Golfo on 24 May 1935, to Bernardo Mattarella, politician of the Christian Democrats, ten times minister between the 1950s and 1960s, and Maria Buccellato.
He is the second born of four brothers. The last one, Sergio, is our President of the Republic. The family moved to Rome in 1948 and became involved in Catholic Action. He graduated with top marks in Law at Sapienza University.
In 1958 he returned to Sicily, married Irma Chiazzese, became a private law assistant at the University of Palermo, and his children Bernardo and Maria were born.
Between 1962 and 1963 he joined the DC, despite his father Bernardo wanting him away from Sicilian political life. He believes in the renewal of the DC starting from the recovery of its religious and moral roots.
In November 1964 he became a city councilor in Palermo in the midst of the crisis of the DC: Lima and Ciancimino were in fact establishing themselves and the "sack" of the city was being prepared. In 1967, having entered the Regional Assembly, Piersanti spoke of transparency, he fought to avoid opacity and cliques. He was re-elected for two legislatures, 1971 and 1976. In the years of the "historical compromise", an idea launched by Enrico Berlinguer in 1973, Moro became a friend and a teacher for Piersanti, the heir and continuer of the historical and political line of democratic Catholicism of Sturzo and De Gasperi.
He doesn't have an easy life in Sicilian politics.
He carefully guards his private life so that it is not touched by poisons.
On 8 February 1978 he was elected president of the Sicilian Region at the head of a centre-left coalition with the external support of the PCI. He utters uncomfortable words against the mafia, when there were still those who denied its existence.
But, above all, he acts on the transparency of the regional government by approving reforms, in particular on procurement and urban planning, a terrain of speculation and the interests of mafiosi and property developers.
On January 6, 1980, the day of the Epiphany, Piersanti left his home in Via Libertà. He gets into his car to go to mass with his family. He has no escort. On holidays Mattarella refuses it, he wants the agents to be able to be with their families. A killer approaches and shoots him. One of his sons runs to warn his brother Sergio, who comes down immediately.
He accompanies him on the run to the emergency room. When they arrive, Piersanti is no longer there. He was only 45 years old.
Almost 43 years have passed since the assassination of Piersanti Mattarella and, if his death still remains obscure from a procedural point of view, his figure remains luminous. Piersanti lived with the conviction that for Christians it is never possible to separate political action from morality, from the culture of legality, from an ethical vision of service, individual responsibility and transparency.

By the editorial team
Focus - Let's prepare peace
NP August / September 2023