From the outskirts of Rome to the leadership of the bishops, the path traced by the Cardinal. Historical figure of the Community of Sant’Egidio, he deals with homeless people, immigrants, marginalized. Cycling through the streets in Bologna. The choice to live with elderly priests
VATICAN CITY. From the outskirts of Rome he arrived at via Aurelia, from where he will lead the Italian bishops over the next five years. With a great dream: a Church that “is on the road, speaks to everyone and wants to reach everyone’s heart”, using “a single language, that of love”, to make itself understood “in the Babel of the world”. These are the first programmatic words of Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna, nominated yesterday by Pope Francis as president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI).
In his adopted city no one calls him “eminence”, for everyone he is always “Don Matteo”. Zuppi rides a bicycle and has chosen to live in the “Casa del clero”, where the elderly priests live, rather than in the apartment in the archbishopric.
Born in Rome on 11 October 1955, fifth of six children, in the corridors of the Liceo Virgilio the bond with Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, was established during the years in which another friend attended the school in via Giulia , David Sassoli, future president of the European Parliament.
Zuppi begins to attend the Roman slums, popular schools for marginalized children, parties for the elderly who are alone and not self-sufficient. And then the homeless people, the Roma, the immigrants, the prisoners. At the age of 22, after graduating in Literature at La Sapienza University, he entered the seminary of the diocese of Palestrina, following the preparation courses for the priesthood at the Pontifical Lateran University, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in theology. Ordained priest in 1981, Vincenzo Paglia became deputy to the parish priest of the Roman basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, future monsignor president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and spiritual advisor of Sant’Egidio. He will succeed him in 2000 for ten years. “I have known him from a young age”, says Paglia, “Don Matteo is a cardinal-pastor who has not lost the spirit of the street priest, and is capable of communicating with everyone, inside and outside the Catholic enclosure”.
Zuppi, promoter of interreligious dialogue, is the protagonist of mediations in the world with the “UN of Trastevere” (as Sant’Egidio is called, of which he will become ecclesiastical assistant) to restore peace where it seemed impossible, especially in Mozambique. In 2010 he was called to lead a suburban parish in Torre Angela. Shortly after, on January 31, 2012, Benedict XVI chose him as auxiliary bishop of Rome. On 27 October 2015, Bergoglio entrusted him with the seat of Bologna and on 5 October 2019 he made him a cardinal.
In Bologna, Zuppi found himself the “owner” of Faac, a multinational company in automatic gates. But he turned out to be more trade unionist than entrepreneur: no to layoffs, yes to initiatives that facilitate the relationship of employee parents with their children, these are his guidelines.
“Synodality and collegiality”, without forgetting the suffering of the world. He thus presents his mission as the new president of the CEI. He looks to current events and “the moment we are living, both in Italy, in Europe and in the world, and as a Church, because things are closely united”. So “the pandemics”: first of all Covid “with all that he has revealed about our frailties and weaknesses, with the questions he has opened, the awareness and insanity he has caused”. And now “the pandemic of war” that the Pope “with so much insistence” has stigmatized in recent years. In a recent interview with La Stampa Zuppi asked to “help the victims in Ukraine and stop the executioner”, but also highlighted that “war cannot be overcome with war. There is the right to self-defense, but even more is the right to peace ”.
Proximity is for Zuppi “one of the things that relieves me the most”. And he trusts to feel his own “smallness and inadequacy on his shoulders: I hope to always remain aware of it”. Then, a reminder of the predecessors. He thanks Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti for the “fraternity he created”; and “for their wisdom” the cardinals Camillo Ruini and Angelo Bagnasco: “I called both of them a little while ago, asking for an audience”.
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