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ESCAPE FROM CANONICA ARE WORSE THAN ESCAPE FROM HOME: I PRETINI TRENDY IN THE ROLE OF STAR TELEVISIONS IN THE SCALBA SIGN OF CLERICALLY CORRECT

I have nothing against social pretini well sorted, clean, Instagrammable, with the well-redesigned eyebrow by the beautician. Gel in the hair, four jaunty highlights on the hair, dreamy look, melancholy and absent, in which the mysticism of a little image is confused with the security of an improbable warm Church from Mulino Bianco, only the voice of the speaker of Barilla which by changing the subject of the spot ads: "Where there is Church there is home".

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A few days ago, a dear reader of ours de The Island of Patmos emailed me a reflection of the presbyter Luigi Maria Epicoco on the figure of the priest with an evident rhetorical style of circumstance, tending - in my personal opinion - to clerically correct.

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If I'm honest, I feel like saying that I am not at all crazy towards the presbyter Luigi Maria Epicoco and his recent poem about priests. And I say this with the awareness of being a sinner and maybe, no more for this, it would be better not to listen to me.

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With Catholic frankness I would like to express that although today this young priest is the most popular in all clerically correct circles, surely found a good "devil bring it", so much so that it appears in many contexts as a sort of "priest image" that is used as in the past the good Sunday dress was used. Let me be clear, I have nothing against social pretini well sorted, clean, Instagrammable, with the well-redesigned eyebrow by the beautician. Gel in the hair, four jaunty highlights on the hair, dreamy look, melancholy and absent, in which the mysticism of a little image is confused with the security of an improbable warm Church from Mulino Bianco, only the voice of the speaker of Barilla which changes the subject of spot announces: "Where there is Church there is home", all with background music «Unleash the joy, today there is a party here ".

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No, I'm not crazy about these reflections from languid poems that seem to me extremely out of touch with reality, from that reality that we touch daily with our hands in the midst of our increasingly refractory faithful, distrustful and disaffected for a Church that draws in the race to stay alive, sometimes to be better than the world. This is why I wouldn't worry so much about what people think of the priest, as the dear Luigi Maria Epicoco writes in his poignant poem from Perugina chocolate kisses, rather I would worry about what the priest thinks of himself and his life, what is worth living for and someday dying for.

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I often see diocesan priests who already dai 40 years I'm in identity crisis, constantly in quarrel with his bishop, who are unable to get along with their own condiocesans, refractory to be together for lunch, to pray together, and that sometimes they pretend to want to teach the faithful what they do, with Olympic chutzpah, still fail to do. For these reasons, before thinking about what the priest does, we should "rethink the priest" in its entirety, since the time of the seminar in which one grows in individualism and in the most competitive careerism. Seminars where not infrequently, if a rector dares to scold a seminarian, the latter runs to protest the bishop who does not hesitate to remove the rector of the seminary. Or maybe it can, the bishop, show up at the assemblies with the other bishops and say that unfortunately he finds himself with the seminary empty? But despite the fact that he prefers to have the seminary empty, rather than running the risk of bringing self-centered subjects affected by incorrigible narcissistic spirit to the priesthood?

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Yup, reflections from Perugina chocolate kisses emotionally nourishing like a Ferrero chocolate, those of Luigi Maria Epicoco, before which the question is required: how much time the priest spends in the confessional, to do spiritual direction, as for the bedside of the sick, as for finding the elderly and lonely confreres, as to praying and meditating on the Word and teaching it to his people even when it is uncomfortable, rather: especially when it is uncomfortable and dangerous for the world? Because on the top of Monte Calvario there is not a jar of Nutella as a prize for the joyful climber peace and love, but Christ crucified. And how long they spend, this kind of pretini trendy, to defend the Truth even when it can cost him visibility?

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When these pretini trendy participate in the various talk show, with how much and what rabbit-like skill, they avoid touching on topics that would arouse the ire of soubrette studied in the role of opinion leaders? I remember one, time ago, that in the face of the issue of abortion that was only touched on the sly, before a soubrette who first declared herself a Catholic believer, then he specified that just as such he would never prevent other girls from being able to have an abortion, the little priest trendy, far from telling the happy goose that he could proclaim himself Catholic to the same extent that Jack the Ripper could proclaim himself a non-violent pacifist, he found nothing better to do than swallow the chocolate Kiss Perugina and quickly read the thought imprinted on the map: "The important thing is to welcome these women without judging them but only holding them to the heart". And everyone in the studio cheered, the self-styled Catholic abortionist first in the lead. My question is superfluous: this little priest trendy, a bishop has it? And why, the bishop, taking note of that representation, he took great care not to tell him: "You, in a television studio, starting today you don't have to dare to set foot on it "? The reason is obvious: but because the bishop surely knew very well that the little priest trendy he would have charged at him mass media. Therefore rabbit the priest and even more rabbit the bishop, other than poignant poems!

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I admit that maybe I'll be out of fashion. Then, if being out of fashion was a sin, I also admit that I am obstinate in sin, because ai social pretini I prefer that holy presbyter of Dolindo Ruotolo, that as a Lazarist religious he was expelled from his own religious congregation with heavy accusations of heresy and even of being demon-possessed and that as a diocesan priest, with the powder impaled, torn and a little dirty and greasy, it made God's desire come. Quite the contrary, if I look at these priests 2.0, always careful and strictly not to hurt the susceptibility of the masses, willing at most to accept a Gospel watered down with emotion, I might end up tempted to go to the beautician for a waxing too, at the beauty farm giving me massages and exercising my biceps in the gym.

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I will by chance be envious? Perhaps, if anything, even ugly, but also among the clergy the image of the successful priest is increasingly emerging, who must never ask, like the old woman advertising of Denim musk. Priest reduced to the gear of a perfect organism - these priests almost always gravitate within some well-structured and protected ecclesial movement - who have found a way to be on page. Maybe when I see them being yelled at by anti-clerical atheists in a hospital lane, or unjustly taken for pedophiles within a parish, or mocked in the street by young people who are barely teenagers, or to experience the solitude of the empty church as in the Guareschi parish of Montenara where poor Don Camillo was sent as punishment by his bishop, then perhaps I will be able to appreciate these reflections. But, as I said from the beginning, surely I am the odd one, all with an aggravating circumstance: whether to respect, live and practice the Holy Gospel, it implies being weird, I pray to God that he will give me the grace to live strange, so strange to die, although it is true that on top of Calvary, there is not a jar of Nutella as a prize waiting for us.

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the Island of Patmos, 18 February 2022

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