In Pace Christi

“Human and understanding, Fr. Lino was esteemed by all for the joy he spread around him”.

A novice at Gozzano (NO), from 1955 to 1957, competent in electrical work, together with another novice, Giordano Barani, who was a painter, he created a new sort of crib two years in succession. It was both beautiful as well as being moving and very didactic. His work on this sort of crib continued also during the years of his scholasticate in Venegono Superiore (VA).

Having received a Licentiate in Theology at the PIF in Venegono Inferiore (VA), during the early years of his priesthood, Fr. Lino engaged in various activities in vocations promotion and teaching in Barolo (CN) until the end of 1967, when he left for Brazil. After spending a year in the Seminary of Ibiraçu, in Espírito Santo State, he was sent to the south of the state as Rector of the Jerônimo Monteiro Seminary (ES), still under construction, where he worked for four years.

With the Second Vatican Council, even the formation of seminarians went through an identity crisis. Fr. Lino Cordero, Rector, and Fr. Enzo Santangelo, Vocations promoter, decided to try a less clerical formation of their charges: the name “Comboni Seminary” was changed to “Comboni College”, something the Provincial disagreed with.

The change of name brought with it a new formation method. Fr. Lino loved the young seminarians in a friendly way and was loved by them in turn since, with love, he taught them self-discipline. He never punished any of them. He never resorted to his authority as rector to impose rules or precepts. He was considered a democratic Rector since he only took decisions regarding the running of the seminary after consulting the seminarians. He sought to form them by inculcating in them a spirit of mutual respect, self-discipline and responsibility. After four years of work, he was sent from the Comboni College of Jerônimo Monteiro to São Gabriel da Palha, in the north of the country, to head the Comboni Seminary and assist with the pastoral work of the parish.

He afterwards became parish priest of Ibiraçu, also in the State of Spirito Santo and, after six years of pastoral work, was called to São Paulo as head of the management of the CAM and the magazine Sem Fronteiras, which aimed at forming the missionary conscience of the Church in Brazil.

From 1989 to 1995, Fr. Lino was based at Duque de Caxias, RJ, as part of the community for Afro pastoral, with many pastoral activities both within and beyond the parish.

In 2000, he became parish priest of Sagrada Família in Taguatinga (in the Federal District). Unlike the diocesan priests who followed a traditional pastoral, the Combonis endeavoured to form small communities, mainly in the peripheral areas of Riacho Fundo II, where the population was increasing daily. In a few years it reached forty thousand.

In 2005, Fr. Lino left the parish of Taguatinga and accepted the post of Provincial Bursar and Rector of the Shrine of Cruz e Reconciliação in São Paulo, up to the year 2011.

Tired out due to his many activities, in the month of June 2011 he was transferred to Milan for treatment at the Fr. Ambrosoli Centre. Still active and optimistic, he took on the job of local bursar of the Milan house and afterwards that of Vice-Superior of that community. It was there that, on 14 November 2019, weakened by a metastasis, he was visited by “Sister Death”, who placed him in the arms of the Father of Life.
(Fr. Enzo Santangelo, mccj).
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 282 Suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2020 pp. 112-116.