Monsignor Domenico Padovano, bishop of the diocese of Conversano-Monopoli, on the monthly magazine “L’Informatore” dated May 2005, declares that my theological affirmations are “castles in the air”.
I am a madman, only because I am a progressist. I am a madman because progressists are mad.
Monsignor Padovano believes it is a folly to assert, among the others, the free celibacy of the priests and the priesthood of the women.
All the theologians of the dissent are mad, then. Mainly that kind of church that, linking faith and lay status, spirit and history, proceeds, exaggerates and inevitably becomes majority, is mad.
I am mad because I claim that Eucharist must be celebrated in the homes, according to the Passover, with the pater familias as the protagonist. The Christianity of the next future will be domestic, not Templar: it postulates the eucharistic importance of the pater and mater familias.
Monsignor Padovano should read the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, headed neither by a priest nor by an apostle, but by a woman, Stefana, probably a mother.
Therefore both in Corinth and in other places the one who presides the community also presides the Eucharist. So Eucharist in Corinth is celebrated in the homes and presided by the host family or by one of the family members. Monsignor Padovano should not accuse me “in a simple-minded way” to erase the institution of the presbyters. In an historical-epochal perspective, the Christianity will witness a flourishing of the family protagonism: the church will be church of the churches, that is church of the families. To the wandering presbyters, the office of the direction and coordination, mainly the theological enlightenment and the spiritual liveliness through the Word, presiding the Eucharist only in the solemn celebrations.
I am not only mad but also “irregular” that is insubordinate: I undermine the canon law.
Monsignor Padovano purposely forgets that our first meeting was loyal and sincere: I told him that the Lord had consecrated me as a prophet. I had to be free from any official link in order to be totally available for my commission: to speak up before the betrayal of the Council.
My loyalty and my sincerity cost me years of jeers and scorn, loneliness and marginalization.
While all the citizens thought me insane, Monsignor Padovano refrained from helping an insane: yet I had renounced to every ecclesiastic wage and to the offerings of the Masses, investing in poorness and the faith in God.
Unusual condition, mine: meant to be insane and accused of canon indiscipline.
I have experienced the unprecedented: a moribund was looking for my presence and my consolation. He was refused both. I was insane, unreliable, heretical. A girl had disappeared from Monopoli: I was looked for by the Police. I was object of horrible suspicions, spreaded on purpose in clerical and curial environments. I was the author of black masses and orgies. I was an alcoholic. I only had a name, but disgraced and to disgrace.
Since the beginning I was aware that my official point of reference could not be a bishop but the Holy See.
The prophecy, I was given by Jesus Christ, is incompatible with the diocesan horizons.
The interview of monsignor Padovano, actually, has killed the truth, the theology, the spirituality, the pastoral, the humanity. But above all the Spirit.
Priest Dr. Franco Ratti
This article is available in Italian too