THE BISHOP OF ASCOLI PICENO GIOVANNI D'ERCOLE HAS A CHOICE THE BENEDICT OPTION, THE SAME THAT SOON MANY OF US WILL FOLLOW, TOGETHER WITH THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY UNDERTAKEN IT FOR A FEW YEARS

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One could say that it is an escape, but not as the world of gods can understand it adult Catholics who see God as a militant and the Gospel as a political manifesto to strike in the face of those who do not think like them. The escape of Giovanni D'Ercole is the same escape of Pope Benedict XVI, to be understood and read first of all as the flight of Benedict from Nursia who dares to separate from the Empire now corrupt and upset by the invading barbarians in order to rediscover his origins, their roots and the Christian identity that today in the world sounds like an unpronounceable blasphemy.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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S. AND. Mons. Giovanni D'Ercole, Bishop emeritus of Ascoli Piceno

The Bishop of Ascoli Piceno S.E. Mons. Giovanni D'Ercole, Orionine religious, at the threshold of 73 years of age - two years ahead of the expected withdrawal of the bishops from the episcopal chair a 75 years - he decided to present to the Supreme Pontiff the letter of resignation from the pastoral care of his diocese and to enter the monastery to live a life of silence and prayer.

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Thus he motivated his decision:

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“Loving the Church also means having the courage to make difficult choices, suffered, always having in front of the good of the Church and not oneself ".

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Words that recall those of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI and which weigh like boulders in this historical moment of disorder and loss of leadership inside and outside the Church. The situation, we understand it well, it includes the responsibility of many, not just a single.

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Among the battlefields bloodied by the sacrifice of the martyrs, there is a strong fight for the safeguarding of doctrine, of the morality and freedom of the Church. Let's ask ourselves: in this scenario, perhaps a bishop flees?

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One could say that it is an escape, but not as the world of gods can understand it adult Catholics who see God as a militant and the Gospel as a political manifesto to strike in the face of those who do not think like them. The escape of Giovanni D'Ercole is the same escape of Pope Benedict XVI, to be understood and read first of all as the flight of Benedict from Nursia who dares to separate from the Empire now corrupt and upset by the invading barbarians in order to rediscover his origins, their roots and the Christian identity that today in the world sounds like an unpronounceable blasphemy.

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Yet, we men of the Church, we did not understand that to convert others it is necessary to convert ourselves first, the goodness of the Gospel and of the person of Jesus Christ is not embraced by hybridizing politics [cf.. WHO] which by its nature is secular and the century is the historical space and time of man fallen and punished because he rebelled against God. Like this, as the Gospel is not the pauperistic ideal of those who claim to remove poverty with a sort of Roussian optimism, who sees the perfect watch in man, the demiurge who has denied God and creates order in disorder and salvation in despair.

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Being a Church without compromise is possible if Christ is the privileged option of believers and pastors, option that Giovanni D'Ercole has reiterated in these months of health emergency, reminding the top of the government the truths of the faith and diverting the People of God from that safe anesthetized blanket that shakes off all responsibility and involvement with God in the name of an unidentified common good that kills all hope.

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The world now does not understand the choice of the bishop emeritus of Ascoli Piceno, but he will understand it when he realizes that the cisterns are now dry and the granaries empty and full of rats.

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Maybe some bishop, priest or simple faithful will consider this decision hasty, because a bishop who enters monastic cloister looks so much like a Ferrari hidden in the garage, all alone, parked there to rust.

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But no, my dear! In that silent solitude the granaries are being prepared, the grain of Christ's Word is piling up, the good seed that feeds and that will be sown in the future is being preserved. Before long we will all be hungry, the cry of Jeremiah according to which

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"The prophet and the priest wander around the country and don't know what" [Gives 14,18],

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of this impotence we are more than witnesses in many realities. But not all the prophets of our time and priests are unaware and indecisive, some, like Giovanni D'Ercole, as well as Benedict XVI in front of the spiritual desert, they choose the desert of the cloister. They do

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«[…] what the farmer does when the river overwhelms the banks and invades the fields: the seed must be saved. When the river has returned to its bed, the earth will re-emerge and the sun will dry it. If the farmer will have saved the seed, he will be able to throw it on the earth made even more fertile by the silt of the river, and the seed will bear fruit, and the turgid and golden ears will give men bread, life and hope. The seed must be saved: faith […] we must help those who still have the faith and keep it intact. The spiritual desert stretches every day, every day new souls wither because they are abandoned by faith " [1].

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All this will pass and pass for everyone, hungry and starving. The way out is to immediately look for whoever keeps the good seed in the barn, even with difficult and painful choices that involve one's own person.

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Giovanni D'Ercole, presbyter and bishop, did this, and it is a duty and, above all Christian, express a blessing thank you to God for giving it to us. Which I express not only in a personal capacity, but also in the name of all the Fathers de The Island of Patmos.

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Laconi, 30 October 2020

NOTE

^[1] See. Giovannino Guareschi, Don Camillo and Don Chichì, in all Don Camillo. Small world, (II), BUR, Milan, 2008, pp. 3114-3115.

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