The Voice That Builds a Better World
Giorgio Vittadini - We are pleased to publish this chapter by Giorgio Vittadini from the book In Dialogue with Christ: The Lesson of Don Camillo, edited by Egidio Bandini, published on Il Sussidiario.
In Giovannino Guareschi's Mondo piccolo stories, the dialogues between Don Camillo and the crucified Christ that stands prominently on the altar of his parish might seem to most people to be just a particularly successful theatrical effect. In reality, they contain a profound and relevant teaching.
The 1950s were a period of rigid ideological conflict. Italy, a frontier country divided between communists and Catholics, was emblematic of this division. For believers, the points of reference were adherence to the dogmas proclaimed in the Creed, obedience to the hierarchy and the Pope even in political choices, and the search for a moral consistency that permeated the mentality of even non-Catholics.
But, as Don Giussani, among others, prophetically realized, all this was not enough. Most people lacked an experience of faith as a correspondence between reality and their personal needs for truth, justice, and beauty. As a result, Christians struggled to personally grasp that Christ's presence was real, something that could be encountered in the Christian community and in daily life, and that it responded to their fundamental needs. The sharp decline in adherence to the Christian faith after 1968 amply demonstrates this. Guareschi, bucking the trend, makes this continuous and personal dialogue with Christ the very root of Don Camillo's personality.
Don Camillo obeys his ecclesiastical superiors, but he cannot help but compare everything he feels and everything that happens to him with this mysterious Presence. Thus, he discovers that Jesus is not an idea or an abstraction, but a real Presence—a companion, a friend, the true authority who accompanies, comforts, and corrects him.
Like the child protagonist of the film Marcellino pane e vino (Marcellino Bread and Wine), Don Camillo talks to Him, vents his feelings, questions Him, argues with Him, and almost fights with Him, only to ultimately accept every correction. He does not speak to an abstract God or rely on vague intuitions prompted by a thought. He dialogues with Christ through a real sign—that crucifix—just as St. Francis did with the crucifix of San Damiano in Assisi.
This is why Don Camillo can give up everything, but he cannot deprive himself of that sign. And so he undertakes a voluntary Way of the Cross, with the cross on his shoulders, for seven kilometers uphill, in the snow, at night, to reach the parish where he had been exiled.
And Christ responds to his friend Camillo in a way that is both ancient and modern. He is never definitive, assertive, or distant; He corrects his parish priest with elegant irony, urging him to open up to everyone, even his enemies; to forgive offenses; to overcome ideologies, not only those of political parties; to show mercy; to seek the positive in every circumstance; and to open himself up to hope again.
Thus, in the last pages of the stories in Mondo piccolo, Guareschi suggests to a frightened Don Camillo that he start over and begin again, inviting him not to tire of planting and nurturing the seed that is faith.
Guareschi affirms that this Christ is the Christ of his conscience. The dialogues are not an intimate reduction of faith but the condition for realizing the living and real presence of the One who “dwells among us.” It is only through this intimate dialogue that Don Camillo knows “the smell of his sheep,” as Pope Francis said at the gathering of the Italian Church in Florence.
It is only through this inner dialogue connected to real life that Don Camillo can give hope and confidence to his Mondo piccolo, a metaphor for people all over the world. Don Camillo's dialogue with Christ is at the heart of everything that happens in the series. This dialogue reopens the possibility of conversation, even friendship, with Peppone and his followers, enabling Don Camillo to build the common good of their town, whatever may divide them. It makes him feel responsible for life and for everyone—not only for matters of worship but also for work, poverty, illness, acts of violence, and the most hidden needs of the seemingly most insignificant people.
Dialogue with the profound truth that is within us allows us to avoid reducing our personal, social, and political lives to belonging to opposing sides. It helps us avoid entrusting ourselves solely to powerful leaders, which would leave us fundamentally alone and incapable of building the common good and peace.
In a world where no one listens to one another anymore on a family, social, national, or international level, the dialogue between Christ and Don Camillo—frank, true, profound, and full of positive insight and correction—is the paradigm for every human relationship.