|
|
||||
|
Italian Association Amici di Raoul Follereau (AIFO) |
||||
|
|
||||
|
Italian Association Amici di Raoul Follereau (AIFO) |
||||
|
A
Patron Saint for Human Rights
One has to be mad to come here “One has to be mad to come here.” One hundred and twenty
years after his death, this modest missionary, who was little media-savvy and was
working on a forgotten corner of earth that was considered cursed at that time,
has entered permanently in the legends under the name of Father Damien and recently
he was nominated by the Bel Father Damien, this modest
priest, was a About twenty years ago I
met a Bel I think that the path of
the missionary Damien, is to apply in his work the meaning of the values of the gospel. He wants those in his
care, to see and to understand his God and of whom he has become an instrument,
is the God of the love. And maybe Franz Kafka, when he defined “the absolute
love”, he had in his mind, lives given for others like that of Damien and had
written, : «The Love is an abyss of light, in front of which it is
necessary to close the eyes for not falling off the precipice.» Damien was like a rock in a
storm, he did let himself to be changed or perturbed, nor by authorities of the island that felt
that God's madman went a little too quickly in his work, nor by certain members
of the hierarchy of the church, who did not want to wait and didn't understand
his complete giving up of himself. This young priest who had gone off the
beaten paths, disturbed them. But the whole world had began to take note of
this man and no one dared to stop him, even if his detractors continued to try
to create obstacles. But the unavoidable occured. In June 1885, Father Damien
started his sermon with the words: « We the lepers …». The friend of persons
with leprosy had himself become one of them. A booklet of the Damien Action tells
us: “Father Damien died on *** My Italian friends from
AIFO have asked me to look for parallels with this other Apostle of persons
with leprosy, Raoul Follereau, who was born in Nevers in It would have been easier
to compare Damien of Veuster with the lives of Mother Teresa or Maximilian
Kolbe, canonized by the Pope Jean Paul II.
These are sacrifices
in the Christ's wake on the Path of Golgatha. And Raoul Follereau ? Follereau was a deeply lay
person, a very determined lay person and a believer, who endeavoured to lead a “political
action”, in the larger sense of the words,
for one of the most needy group of persons of that time. Follereau called to the men
of good will, beyond their religious differences. But this lay person, he did
not want mere philanthropy, mere human generosity, mere solidarity. He wanted that this
solidarity should be accompanied with Love. On this point, the thoughts of Fr. Damien
and Raoul Follereaus meet, as explained by Raoul Follereau met his
destiny during a journey in It was a shock for him and
he decided to sacrifice his life to defend their cause. This decision is another
common parallel between the life of these two But their journey to this fight
was different. Father Damien decided to work
directly with them, working to provide physical and moral relief to those in
his care, persons who were condemned to death,
taking care of them, burying them, and exposing himself to unavoidable
infection. On the other hand, Raoul Follereau worked for putting the scandal of
the leprosy in the shop window of the news, he wanted to use popular media.
Together with his wife, he went around the earth some thirty two times, to
discover persons affected with leprosy in the forgotten corners of the earth. Through
contacts with a minority group of persons with their decomposing bodies, he
measured himself. He made an inventory of conditions in which persons were
forced to live. He expressed his shock openly and he cried his revolt to the
world, that persisted in negating the situation insolently. «I talk of what I have seen,
as I have seen it. Persons with leprosy closed in mental sanatoriums, persons
with leprosy left in the desert, in a jail, shut in a cemetery. Behind barbed
wires with the armed guards having submachine-guns, the starved, naked persons
with leprosy, who live terrorized, miserable, mute lives. I saw a number of horrors
that can’t be imagined. And I will shout loudly, so that those who have closed
their ears can hear it, until these outcasts of history will be treated like
other persons.» And he reacted:
Raoul Follereau died on *** If the paths of these two
big men were different, their convictions, their faith, their thoughts, their
ideals, were the same. R. Follereau had written: «The one who is right And if Descartes could affirm
his well known thesis: « I think therefore I am». We also know that Damien
and Follereau meant with the same conviction : For the two men, the love was
not reflected on their own selves or as a unique relation between two beings
but it was a transcending value. Loving someone, meant being close to that
someone. But to be close to someone, to a person with leprosy, a poor person, a
friend, an enemy, does not mean meeting them on the street, but it means to be
in communion with them to the point, where you question your own self. And for
Father Damien, it meant the total sacrifice of himself in the service of God
and the man. And R. Follereau confirmed:
« Il is necessary to love
the poor persons, to love the happy persons, to love those who are sick, to love
persons with leprosy, to love the unknown, to love the neighbour, to love
someone who is at the end of the world, to love the stranger who lives close to
us, to love … Without that love, none of genuflexions
of bells or fasts will mean any thing. If you do not love, you are not a
Christian.» Loving and Helping, there are
the keywords in the existence of the two Apostles of persons with leprosy. All that and all those who refer
to their memory and their thoughts should be conscious of wealth and the authenticity of
their message. Now from the « Far from me, takes
place the history of the world. And to live this ideal, one
doesn't need to go until the other end of the world. Each one among us meets
every day a being with his face pushed to the ground. It is enough to stop and
to turn the face of hurt person toward the Sunlight. Everyday, we are on the
path to Jos Hilger
|
|
|
AIFO, Via
Borselli 4-6, 40135 Bologna, Italy
Tel: +390-51-4393.211 Fax: +390-51-434046 Email: info@aifo.it
