Pulitzer_Prizes
The Sicilian Missioner
After sixteen days of brother Biagio’s fasting and prayers for Paul and for all those in the same situation, the administrative court has suspended for now the denial of the residence permit for the guest of the mission “Speranza e Carità”. The Franciscan lay was fasting for 16 days invoking a solution. Paul Yaw can stay at Palermo, at least for the moment, the Ghanaian guest of the mission “Speranza e Carità”, for whom Biagio Conte was fasting for 16 days. The administrative court has suspended the rejection of the request of the residence permit for the plumber who arrived in the city ten years ago, discarding the decree of expulsion from Italy. The recourse, filed by the lawyer Giorgio Bisagna, had a positive outcome in record time. The administrative court recognized the risk of “severe damage” for the Ghanaian, in case of forced repatriation. Paul Yaw didn’t receive the renewal of the resident permits due to job issues and in the past weeks has been reached by the expulsion decree with daily requirement to sign-in at the police station of Brancaccio. That’s why Biagio Conte has chosen Anita Garibaldi square, place where Father Puglisi was killed, to start his hunger strike in defense of the immigrant. The lay missioner has now obtained what he wanted: the cancellation of the expulsion decree of the “immigrant brother”. Now he can suspend the hunger strike. This is what the mayor of the city, Leoluca Orlando is asking him: “Brother Biagio please suspend the hunger strike, even if the mobilization against the inhuman law (the Salvini decree) continues now and in the future.”
Who is Paul? An immigrant, a brother! But who are these brothers? Perhaps they want to tell us something and we aren’t ready to listen. We would like to publish a letter handwritten in English by Paul, which we translated in Italian. Paul wrote this letter a few years ago to Brother David, a young missionary on the day of his ordination. Brother David decided to share this letter with all of us to make us realize the depth of these brothers. Here’s the message:
Take care of your spiritual life and your relationship with God as this is the spine of what I do and am. Take care of your life in this big family; donate love to your children and not only money, donate your time, attention and love. Take care of your relationships with others. Transform your faith in experience, in language, in works and above all in the needs of your brothers. Pay attention to your speech; purify your speaking from offensive, vulgar and worldly words. Heal your heart with the oil of forgiveness, forgiving the people who have injured us, treating the injuries that we have inflicted on others. After, verify that your work is done with enthusiasm, humility, competence, passion and above all with the spirit to give thanks to the Lord. Beware of envy, anger, lust and hate and all those negative feelings that undermine our inner peace. Beware of anger that can lead to revenge, laziness that leads us to existential euthanasia, the finger-pointing that leads to arrogance and the continual complaining that leads us to desperation. Take care of the weak brother and sister, the elder, the sick, the angry, the homeless.”
