” “"A person may serve a long penal sentence, but if he feels himself pardoned by God he feels himself free", ” “says Father Carmelo, who has spent thirty years at the side of prison inmates ” “
The telephone rings 24 hours a day. The doorbell too rings at all hours. We are in London, at number 4 Back Hill where St. Peter’s Italian Church is situated. It’s the church of the Italian community. Founded by St. Vincent Pallotti in the mid-nineteenth century “to be close to and assist the numerous immigrants”, it still remains to this day an essential point of reference for so many Italians but also for men and women from all over the world. Here lives Father Carmelo Di Giovanni, aged 58. He comes from Calabria. He has lived in London for thirty years, and is now parish priest of the Italian church. “A little big man”: that’s how he has been described by one of the many “kids” whom Father Carmelo has met in the English prisons of which he is chaplain. “How many times a former prison inmate wrote to him I have asked myself how you can continue to care for us, after so many years of lies and deceits. At times I’m ashamed of all the fibs I’ve told you, but you don’t get angry and are ready to forgive. It’s like the eternal struggle of good against evil. Whenever I think of you, I’m reminded of the definition of the ‘little big man'”. Every year a thousand or so Italian youngsters find themselves incarcerated in the prisons of the UK. But prisoners, drug addicts, alcoholics, drop outs find a father and friend in Father Carmelo. “I see the face of Christ in each of these kids. At times it’s difficult, there are moments of doubt, of anger he admits but it’s Christ knocking at the door”. His dream is that of building a big house in which to provide a home to the youngsters who have decided to build a new life for themselves. For the time being he is content to throw open the doors of his church and of his home. Up till a few months ago, twice each week, the parish hall was thronged with people in search of a hot meal, of a moment of relaxation watching TV, or a clean set of clothes. “The voice got around says Father Carmelo and so hundreds of people of all nationalities turned up. Unfortunately we have now been forced to suspend this service”. Small of stature, grey hair, wearing his inseparable pair of trainers, Father Carmelo welcomes everyone. In prison he has met terrorists, thieves, murderers. For each he has words of comfort and hope. “It’s great he says when I receive letters from those who’ve made it and who tell me of their new life. It’s sad telling parents of the last days of the life of their son. How many times fathers or mothers have phoned the parish in search of their son who has disappeared. How many times have I received a request from the police, asking me to identify a young man who has died of an overdose, and has been found lying on the pavement or in the tunnels of the underground”. For many of these kids the first port of call after their release from prison is always St. Peter’s Church, where they arrive with the hope of a better life. Some succeed in finding it. “One of the finest experiences I’ve had with these kids says Father Carmelo is confession. I’m always struck by the humility of those who confess, the conscience of persons tainted by crime and the dawning consciousness of having done wrong, the repentance for their own guilt. They are people who feel themselves reduced to rubble, totally destroyed. But when they gain awareness of the evil they have caused, they don’t ask for freedom; they recognize they ‘have to pay’ for what they have done, like the good thief on the cross; some of them are so desperate that they think that God cannot forgive them. And it’s at this point that the sacrament of Reconciliation comes in: it permits the sinner to be reborn, to have a new life. It’s not prison bars, physical chains that make a man a slave, no one can rob us of life and liberty. A person may also serve a long prison sentence, but if he feels inside that he has been forgiven by God, he feels himself free”. “The forgiveness granted in the sacrament of Reconciliation is not an external act, a kind of juridical amnesty, but a genuine meeting of the penitent with God”, writes the Pope in his letter to priests for Maundy Thursday, urging a rediscovery of this sacrament.
