Santa not only in name

Publish date 23-05-2023

by Annamaria Gobbato

«For some time now, my mother has learned another profession: a bodyguard. She accompanies her daughter, changing her itinerary every day, even in the university classrooms. One day at the entrance to the University of Bari with the umbrella she threw herself against Giuseppe who escaped. I can't go out alone in Bari because there's a man who's been behind me since June and a few weeks ago he attacked me: "I'll make you dry" ».

Who writes like this in her diary is Santa Scorese (1968-1991), one of the first victims of femicide in Italy, when the crime of stalking was not recognized. Santa was a normal girl, with a spirituality refined by contacts with the Focolare Movement and Catholic Action which made her discover the value of service to the poor. In search of her vocation, she discovers in Jesus the Person to whom to give life. «He loves me anyway, even with my limitations, and I feel the need to choose him again every day as the most important thing for me».

She is fascinated by the figure of Father Kolbe and cherishes the idea of joining her missionaries in the future Dreams soon broken by the delirium of a psychopath, who one day manages to surprise her alone and kill her with 14 stab wounds: « Either mine or nobody's, and not even God's." Dying Santa forgives him. She is consistent with the advice given some time ago to a friend: «Reconciliation is made when“ in the other ”that one meets on one's path one knows how to see the great possibility of a better future, despite the past. In Jericho, to Zacchaeus, perched on a sycamore tree, Jesus did not say "a sinister official, an exploiter who sucks blood from the poor", but "come down quickly, today I must stay in your house ... salvation has entered this house because he too is son of Abraham". Forgiveness is difficult, but Jesus was also a man like you and me, and yet... We cannot be like everyone else and think like everyone else because Jesus entered history and this cannot fail to revolutionize our being!!! I hug you tightly, Santa".


Annamaria Gobbato
NP February 2023

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