How much longer until the dawn of your Kingdom?

An Open Letter to the Nonviolent Revolutionary from Galilee

You walk with the legs of Faith, held captive by the human trafficking system. You embrace with the arms of Nasser, a towering imam whose very breath speaks of Peace. You smile through the eyes of Laura, a young doctor with Mediterranea who saves lives amid the waves.

In short, you never stop moving, just as you did in Galilee. You move among CGIL trade union groups, Libera, the Migrants and Refugees Movement, the Scouts, a myriad of more than 400 associations, and political parties. And then there are the churches. Seven bishops walking together for something far removed from lifeless processions or patron saint celebrations disconnected from real life.

Here we are, right in the midst of the world's challenges, at the heart of Castel Volturno, a city of Dignity and of the Peoples of the World, so often mistreated and trampled underfoot. Now it is rising to its feet! And it will not be cheated out of another €43 million (reduced to €31 million through a race to the bottom, once again at the expense of the most vulnerable!) and handed over to the Camorra. Now the city bears the face of humanity in a thousand colours!

From the very beginning, I knew you would take to the streets and would not miss the extraordinary march on Saturday, 24 October, along the Domitian Way in Castel Volturno, protesting against the CPR (Centres for Immigration Detention and Repatriation).

You, Jesus of Nazareth, who love open spaces and vast expanses, horizons without end, how can you bear the pain and the cries coming from those hells? Living so intensely in the lives of our brothers and sisters—those few who are held in the hellish CPR detention centre in Rome—did you really expect the human species to sink so low? Was Auschwitz not enough? Is Gaza not enough? And when you were crucified once again in George Floyd and Fakir, killed on the ground by police officers, what did you feel? Do you not feel revulsion, too, at the resurgence of fascism and Nazism?

Tell me the truth: do you still believe in humanity? In men and women? While we stopped believing in you long ago and have knelt before the idol of money, how can you still place your trust in us?

I sensed it from the very beginning, and with growing certainty, that your answer would be yes. I felt it during the long online meetings with the Committee as we prepared the march: in the passion we brought to getting involved, in the precious time we devoted to organising an event unlike any we had seen for a long time, in the care we took over every detail. I breathed you in. I felt you deep within me.

I felt you during the demonstration, in the most beautiful chant of all, which we repeated at the top of our voices:

“The earth belongs to everyone. No one is a foreigner.”

I saw you in the banner carried by the Black&White Association, bearing the verbs Pope Francis used when speaking of you as a migrant:

“Welcome, protect, promote, integrate.”

And so we felt Francis of Rome walking alongside us, just as you did. I touched you in Pilar's hands, as she held on to that banner from beginning to end without ever letting go.

You were, and still are, everywhere: in the dance of the young people of Naples, in the songs of migrants, in the peaceful procession as we covered mile after mile. The only things infiltrating our ranks were those bearing the names of Hope and of Another World, urgently waiting to be built.

Today, you are present in the profound realisation that the world cannot be changed by the united footsteps of a human tide marching together on a Saturday afternoon. The world is changed through stubborn resistance and commitment, day after day. Hour after hour. Beginning on Monday at five in the morning, when it takes a bombardment to get us out of bed.

As we walked, with so many people who had come from elsewhere, they kept asking me over and over again:

“How much longer until the end?”

As I answered by giving them the ever-decreasing number of kilometres left to walk, I felt a conviction growing within me, along with a question that was becoming ever more pressing and urgent for this burning humanity:

“Jesus of Nazareth, surely this road we are walking is the only way to live as human beings on this earth. But how much longer until the dawn of Your Kingdom?”

Filippo Ivardi Ganapini
Comboni missionary in Castel Volturno