“Don’t bury yourself in your shoes, always go beyond yourself.”
DON ORESTE BENZI, IN LOVE WITH GOD AND MAN
12 stages for 12 months
From September 2024, throughout the period leading up to the centenary of Fr. Oreste Benzi’s birth, each month we will publish an in-depth look at some of the themes that marked his life, 12 stages that will bring us face to face with the concreteness of his choices and his enthusiastic and overwhelming love for God and man.
In love with young people, those who are discarded by society, in love with the dignity of every woman as well as with the good in every man, even if he has done wrong; in love with mission, with an outgoing Church, poor among the poor. In love with Jesus, poor and servant.
A meeting with Don Orestes not an end in itself, but provocative for us, for our today, for the choices we are called to make in our time. Don Orestes, a prophet still and always uncomfortable…
September 2024
In love with the priesthood “Mom, I’m becoming a priest!”
On September 7, 1925, Fr. Orestes was born into a humble peasant family. At the age of seven, hearing his own elementary school teacher present the figure of the priest, he had like a dazzling intuition: to become a priest! From then on he will live this call in a totalizing, joyful way, without any second thoughts, as the most beautiful gift received in his life. He will wear his lisa cassock in every context and environment, wherever the Lord has led him, remaining first and always a priest.
“I was once asked at a youth conference why I had become a priest. I replied, ‘I won’t tell you why I became a priest, but I will tell you that I become a priest every day.'”
Contemplative of God among the poorest
In this booklet we have collected some texts from his writings or reports, in which Fr. Orestes talks about how he understood and lived the priestly mission.
The priest’s specialization: having the heart of Christ!
In this audio file he himself lets us into his heart as a priest, sharing with us the intimate secret of his being a priest. This short audio was extrapolated from a meditation during a spiritual retreat, the Community Desert in July 1998.
October 2024
In love with youth “The hearts of young people today beat for Christ”
Curious, always ready to listen and learn, resourceful, enthusiastic, always inclined to new challenges. Unafraid to go where young people find themselves. Fr. Orestes was able to bring out the best from the hearts of young people, giving them unconditional confidence to change the world, always pointing them to the beyond, to the infinite, but with his hands well kneaded in human affairs.
“The masses of youth will never have them with us again if we don’t stand with them to revolutionize the world and make room within. The hearts of young people today beat for Christ, however, it takes those who feel that beat.”
Make way for young people!
In this writing dating back to December 1996 but which remains surprisingly relevant today, Fr. Orestes expresses all his passion for young people to have a decisive encounter with Jesus.
Young people, rise up and make new heavens and new earth
In this short excerpt from a community homily on Oct. 28, 1990, we listen again to the vigorous and passionate voice of Fr. Orestes as he addresses young people to choose to love and chart a new course in history.
November 2024
In love with society’s discarded “Where we are, there they are too.”
Don Oreste was throughout his life a passionate defender of the dignity of every person, especially if marginalized, exploited, trampled. His struggle for the recognition of the basic rights of housing, health, and labor led him to involve himself personally in public occupations and demonstrations, fighting to change unjust laws. Giving voice to the voiceless.
Always open to every cry for help he encountered, from whatever place and situation it came, he had a special flair for the poorest and smallest.
“We began to challenge the motives that made us say, ‘I can’t help it.’
and we saw that it was up to us to modify ourselves to make room for those who were rejected, excluded, marginalized. So something new was born.”
Where marginalization arises
In this paper first published in the January 2009 Sempre monthly magazine, Fr. Orestes, in a lucid and direct manner, recalls how the main cause of marginalization is the lack of recognition of the dignity of every man, of the fact that each man holds the good of the other. Only when we recognize that we belong to each other will those who are discarded no longer exist in our midst.
Friend of Jesus and friend of the poor
On March 25, 1997, at the funeral of Michel, who was responsible for so many years for the Bethlehem Hut in Rimini, Fr. Orestes delivered a touching and meditative homily. In this short audio fragment he speaks about Michel but it is as if he were speaking about himself, letting us penetrate inside his way of feeling and welcoming the poor.
December 2024
In love with direct sharing “Let’s give a family to those who don’t have one”
Let no one suffer alone! This was the imperative that marked Fr. Orestes’ life: you and I are one in Christ. How to do this? By opening one’s own home, by welding one’s own life with the life of the one in need, by taking charge of his situation, by being a family with him, with her. It is the way of direct sharing.
“The return to God of so many young people we encounter in our realities of life is due not to us or even to the poor, but to the form of direct sharing we experience with our little ones, which is capable of triggering this revelation of God and making the Church credible. Yes, sharing is the credibility ticket of the Church.”
Roberto’s pajamas
In this 1993 article, Fr. Orestes tells us that to share directly means to put oneself inside the wound that does not marginalize those who are alone, those who are defrauded of their rights, those who are excluded, those who are rendered useless. Then we too will be “wounded” and become one with them. We will move from performance to belonging, from assistance to sharing.
The secret of direct sharing
“With the poor there are many, many people. Some will wonder what is so special about us. All those who are with the poor do great things, but I want to reveal to you the secret that you have within you.” So begins the short audio that we offer you, taken from the homily given by Fr. Orestes on 5/29/1993 in the Basilica of Loreto, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Community’s family homes. Next to him had called Marino, a former psychiatric hospital inmate, the one who triggered the urgency to open the first family home.
January 2025
In love with justice and peace “Injustice must be made unbearable”
Don Oreste has carried out a constant and energetic action to remove the causes that determine all kinds of injustice. He has fought together with the last ones for the recognition of their rights, he has implemented public pressure and protest actions, he has met with politicians and institutional offices in search of always new tools, creative and nonviolent, to give voice to the voiceless. He has dared peace actions in places of war and conflict, always fighting against the indifference and resignation of those who wash their hands and close their eyes and hearts to the pain of the oppressed.
“It is not possible to make peace with injustice. With the man who commits injustice we will always have a brotherly relationship, but when our heart makes peace with injustice it means that we are conniving with it and become co-responsible for it ourselves.”
The time has come to organize peace
Don Oreste was not afraid to address government leaders directly. In May 1994, he published an open letter to the newly appointed Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, where for the first time he put forward a proposal to establish a Ministry of Peace. Thirty years later, that request has still not been granted, and the campaign for its implementation is still active and supported by many Bodies, Associations and Movements (see website: www.ministerodellapace.org).
“Today’s society is violent. In it war is structural. This ministry should coordinate a peace policy of all existing ministries; a cross-cutting ministry to organize peace.”
The struggle for justice
“The struggle for justice comes from feeling alone in the loneliness of the lonely, cursed in the cursed, hungry in the hungry, despised and rejected in the rejected. It comes from a much deeper mystery and from a need to truly overturn the situation of falsehood in which the world lives, of appearances, of facades that do nothing but cover an ignominious oppression.”
Strong words, which we listen to again in this audio taken from the talk given by Fr. Orestes on 06/12/1987 at the opening of the Three General Days of the Community, gathered in Rimini. “We never profess struggle for struggle’s sake, but only must ensure that our nonviolent commitment does not cease until our brother is liberated.”
February 2025
In love with life, God’s gift “Running where life is wounded”
In his placing himself on the side of the little ones, the last, the defenseless, Don Oreste starts from the point of beginning, the intrauterine phase of human life, because that is the one that runs the most risk today. Every newly generated human being is unique; no other will be born like him, not even from the same parents. That is why it must be recognized as a person, a unique and unrepeatable being; and to achieve this goal it is first of all necessary to keep consciences alive.
Don Oreste did not hesitate to act with all the means at his disposal and he did so as a credible witness, authentically free from any purely ideological stance, with his gaze of love turned toward mothers and their children.
“Initiated human life has in itself the right to evolve and mature. It is incapable of defending itself: the destruction of initiated life is terrible violence. Such violence, however, is convenient, so it is called right: the right to kill. Abortion is one of the many facts that make monstrously visible the contradictions of a society in which man is wolf to other man.”
What do you actually do for a living?
To this question, posed at the end of a lecture given on the theme of the value of life and the need to stop abortion, Fr. Orestes had to admit that he was doing nothing, just making speeches. From that moment, however, he never stopped running wherever he was called to save even a single life, fighting with all his strength to break the silence and indifference so widespread around this drama. He tells us about it in this text from his most famous book With This Laid Cassock.
“What strikes me is the silence of so many: if all Christians would rise up against such violence! I like a phrase from Martin Luther King: “I am not afraid of the wickedness of the wicked. I fear the silence of the honest.””
I cannot be silent!
“The cry of the Father is no longer heard: these creatures are His children! I do not keep quiet, for if I keep quiet I agree with the murderers: I am an accomplice!”
In this short audio excerpt from the homily given on 10/25/1997, Fr. Orestes strongly expresses the urgency of raising one’s voice to reiterate the need to recognize the inviolable dignity of the human person from the mother’s womb. Even at the cost of going against those who want to silence this cry.
March 2025
In love with his parish community “Pastor and father of a people”
From 1968 to 2000, for 32 consecutive years, Fr. Orestes was pastor of the “Resurrection” in Rimini. He did this by implementing innovative pastoral care, establishing one of the first communities of priests living together and where the parish really belongs to all parishioners. The construction of the kindergarten (the first need felt by the population), the street communities, the presence in the factories, the closeness to all: this is how Don Oreste came out of the sacristy and went to announce Christ among the people, valuing the laity and making everyone rediscover the call to be a people, the people of God.
“I used to think of the church as a building. It grows floor by floor. Then you come to the end and put the roof on. I realized instead that the Church is like a plant. It has to be continually nourished. The day it is not nourished, it dies. The parish community is a living reality that demands continuous presence. He who has more grace must give more.”
A people walking together
“We have always moved on the problems of our people. So many problems that seem small, but are big because they are important to those who live them. First of all, we go to everyone. Second, together we deal with the problems that life presents, time after time. Third, together we try to solve these problems, carrying out those actions that seem suitable and important.” Fr. Orestes explains the pastoral choices that have marked the path of his parish in this interview from the early 1970s.
Having a shepherd’s heart!
Fr. Orestes was a priest inhabited by Christ the Shepherd, who nurtured in his heart “the same feelings as Christ Jesus.” From this heart ignited by the fire of love, descended that irresistible urge to let himself be scrambled for Christ and for poor people, without ifs and buts, starting with his parish community. Commenting on the Gospel passage from Mark, Fr. Orestes in this short audio excerpt from his homily on 07/20/1985, talks about himself, his being a parish priest and pastor. “Here is the substance of my path: to have a shepherd’s heart, the heart of Christ.”
April 2025
In love with a new society, the society of free “Let’s build new life worlds”
Don Oreste matured over time a revolutionary vision of society, in his view the only one that can save humanity from destruction, even coining its name: society of the free. He repeated that the current society cannot be changed or converted: this society must be replaced! It is necessary to give birth from below to “alternative worlds,” founded on a system of interpersonal relationships based on gratuitousness, small seeds capable, however, of affecting the perverse mechanisms of the profit society at the economic, financial, socio-political levels.
“In the society of the free we will fear nothing because each of us does not think of himself, but thinks of the other; each of us feels that all his work to have the necessities of life, is not for himself, but is for all. Even for the wanderers? Yes, for everyone-even for them!”
Can there be a new humanity?
In February 1985 Don Orestes published an editorial in Sempre entitled: Investing in the free the way to change. It is the first writing in which we can grasp the concepts that would later form the basis of his most revolutionary proposal. Twenty years later, in an interview given in May 2004, Don Oreste outlines this new type of alternative society to that of profit and states why he believes in the society of gratuitousness. Two documents all worth reading!
Another world is possible to the extent that there are those who want it
“This society must be replaced. A real revolution is needed: I will certainly not see it and I am sorry, but you have the real revolution in your hands. Don’t go looking for excuses and “stories.” I believe that the gratuitous society is possible to the extent that there are those who want it.”
In a reflection given during the Community’s internal forum on the gratuitous society held in Rimini on May 17 and 18, 2003, Fr. Oreste recalls everyone’s responsibility in bringing about the necessary change. Here is a large excerpt of the audio recording. A full transcript of the talk can be downloaded in the “Themes” section of the website.
