MEETING WITH RODOLFO CETOLONI

“I had never thought this hall would stage a recital about Saint Francis”. In 1988 Rodolfo Cetoloni was a Franciscan Father and still is now, but he is also Bishop. He enters in Rondine’s game as if nothing had changed. It’s the game of memory. The game of the impossible question to which an unexpected answer can be given.  In 1988 Raissa Gorbaciova’s answer (“I’ll wait for you, bring your message to Russia”), in 2010 the answer about the Caucasus: “Those 14 points are a credible plan for dialogue reconstruction”. We would not have believed it yesterday, the manager of the House of Culture of Leningrad didn’t and we wouldn’t believe it today. But Father Rodolfo, starting the march for the ‘Piazze di Maggio’, beneath the hot marquee of Rondine, acted as a link. A link in the story. The journey along La Pira’s vestiges, then the impossible letter to Raissa: written at the end of another march, from Rassina to La Verna, and signed on the altar of the Basilica. “I thought - I’m signing because I believe in it, but I can’t imagine receiving an answer”.

Even today he admits his skepticism, maybe because he was one of the few to base his pastor’s life on it. Or maybe because it wasn’t skepticism: it was the taste for challenge which becomes more interesting when it’s difficult. As difficult as a mission with 80 people, many young ones between 17 and 25 years old, with a show about Saint Francis: with musical instruments, scenery and scripts that tour Europe for days before reaching mother Russia. Difficult but stimulating.

Because while one does all he can to build something successful, success appears when it’s not expected. The university student who forces the extremes of a debate and asks with tears in her eyes for the possibility to have faith: in a Russia that didn’t permit it. The waiter of a hotel who becomes guitarist by night and unites to your songs in a cold hall and plays his own songs of protest which would have a high price. “Don’t worry - he whispered while they were taking him away - I love you”. The old Father and the new Bishop are still moved when telling those stories. When telling the story of the Lithuanian woman  to whom he gives a bible, she kisses it before giving it back and bursts into tears when realizing it’s a gift. When talking about the young people in Leningrad (no other than Saint Petersburg…) who listen to the show in their language during the first half but forget about it in the second half, because the music, the dialogue and the smiles affect even Babel. Father Rodolfo tells stories, in a duet with Franco Vaccari, and the scenes from the past are represented for those who didn’t experience them. Young people, educators, international students, even Ambassador Cassini, who every now and then readjusts memory suggesting the correct word or name. The ‘Red Swallow’s’ flight rises and falls, makes circles and dives under Rondine’s marquee and in its history.

“Have a good march” says Father Rodolfo, and you don’t understand if he’s talking about tonight or of the trip in July arm in arm with the 14 points of an ‘impossible’ proposal. Or of himself, Franciscan Father and Bishop but still able to get emotional with the beats of the wings of the ‘Rondine rossa’ (red swallow).