Italy – President of the Republic will visit Udine’s Salesian Institute "Bearzi"

19 April 2022

(ANS - Udine) - On Friday, April 29, the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella shall visit the Salesian Institute "G. Bearzi" in Udine. "The teachers are surprised, happy, and at the same time a little worried, because it is certainly not easy to organize such an appointment," commented Fr Lorenzo Teston. The Head of State's visit to the Salesian institute will serve as a commemoration of Lorenzo Parelli, the 18-year-old student who lost his life in an accident on January 21 while working in a factory. "From a tragic event like this, however, it is necessary to find a seed of hope for other people. And even the President's visit should be read in this way, as a sign of hope," adds Fr Teston.

The Salesian, interviewed by the newspaper "Messaggero Veneto", underlined the different meanings that this visit will have: "First of all, it is a gesture of closeness to the family, which has been contacted by the Quirinale. A loss like Lorenzo's cannot be filled; he represented for us a lacerating, deep pain, a humanly irremediable situation..."

At the same time, he adds, "it is a high, noble gesture of great closeness to the school. We are happy that the President will be able to visit our institute, to touch with his own hands the model of vocational training." This is why Fr Teston and the entire educational community are organizing the event so that Mattarella can "understand the desire for good that we try to fulfill with our vocational courses aimed at young people who struggle in the world of traditional education or who, perhaps, have other skills on which to build a future."

The school also pays great attention to the memory of Lorenzo Parelli. At "Bearzi" there are already various proposals to pay homage to his memory, but the intention is to move only in accordance with the family’s wishes. "We, as an institute, support them and we have been committed, in these difficult weeks, to collaborating with the Region, institutions, and employers to start an organic reflection on the dual path and on the students' paths in the firms. We honor Lorenzo in this way; it seems to us the most concrete and correct way."

The death of a young student, even more so when it is sudden, inevitably gives all the members of the educational community cause for reflection, especially the friends and schoolmates of the young man who died prematurely. The Salesian school did not shirk its task of accompanying the mourning process: "It was a deflagrating event. Starting from the day of the tragedy, we reflected on the meaning of life and started ad hoc psychological support courses for the class group and for the students who requested them. What happened aroused many questions, dialogue, and reflection, especially among the older students," concludes Fr Teston.

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ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication, the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007.

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