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Who is Luca Casarini, and why was he chosen by Pope Francis to be a guest at the Synod at the Vatican in October?
With 464 participants, the next Synod, which begins on October 4th, is likely to be one of the busiest ever. So much so that the venue had to be moved from the so-called Synod Hall to the Paul VI Hall, the one used for the Pope’s audiences.
Those who will be in the Synod Hall have very diverse backgrounds. But when the first provisional list was published by the Holy See Press Office, Italian journalists were the first to point out the most surprising name on the list: Luca Casarini, an Italian layman, one of the special guests personally chosen by Pope Francis. “Here are some groups of people dedicated to rescuing people by boat. I invited one of them, the director of Mediterranea Saving Humans, to the Synod. They tell you terrible stories,” said Pope Francis on September 23rd, during the interview on the papal flight back from Marseille, referring to Mr Casarini.
Casarini himself was probably the first to be surprised by the Pope’s invitation. In an interview this July with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, he said he stopped going to church when he was 12. Nothing strange, as it has often happened to many Italians. But if the Synod on Synodality is intended to sketch the profile of the Church of the future, as its promoters have so often said, the question is: what contribution will Casarini be able to make to the Synod, speaking about something he does not know and has no experience of?
Casarini, to be fair, said in the interview quoted above that he felt he was “the last of the last” and is going to the Synod “to listen, not to teach”. But the fact that there is also a chair for someone with such a questionable personal history remains surprising, to say the least.
Casarini, now 56 years old, is a far-left political activist. His name was almost unknown to Italians until the G8 summit held in Genoa in July 2001.
Even then, the G8 summits were accompanied by huge protests by the no-global movement. Silvio Berlusconi, the famous businessman and political leader who has died a few months earlier, had just won the elections and formed a centre-right government that would rule until the next elections in 2006. He saw the G8 in Genoa as an opportunity to consolidate his prestige as a political leader abroad. This made the protests even bigger and stronger.
Many of the anti-G8 associations in Genoa were united in the ‘Genoa Social Forum’. Casarini, on the other hand, was the leader of the so-called ‘White Suits’. Two months before the G8, during a press conference in Genoa, he launched a kind of war declaration to ‘the powerful of injustice and misery’. He also announced that he would disobey any measures taken by the authorities to ensure the safety of the G8 participants.
Continued below.
www.catholicworldreport.com
With 464 participants, the next Synod, which begins on October 4th, is likely to be one of the busiest ever. So much so that the venue had to be moved from the so-called Synod Hall to the Paul VI Hall, the one used for the Pope’s audiences.
Those who will be in the Synod Hall have very diverse backgrounds. But when the first provisional list was published by the Holy See Press Office, Italian journalists were the first to point out the most surprising name on the list: Luca Casarini, an Italian layman, one of the special guests personally chosen by Pope Francis. “Here are some groups of people dedicated to rescuing people by boat. I invited one of them, the director of Mediterranea Saving Humans, to the Synod. They tell you terrible stories,” said Pope Francis on September 23rd, during the interview on the papal flight back from Marseille, referring to Mr Casarini.
Casarini himself was probably the first to be surprised by the Pope’s invitation. In an interview this July with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, he said he stopped going to church when he was 12. Nothing strange, as it has often happened to many Italians. But if the Synod on Synodality is intended to sketch the profile of the Church of the future, as its promoters have so often said, the question is: what contribution will Casarini be able to make to the Synod, speaking about something he does not know and has no experience of?
Casarini, to be fair, said in the interview quoted above that he felt he was “the last of the last” and is going to the Synod “to listen, not to teach”. But the fact that there is also a chair for someone with such a questionable personal history remains surprising, to say the least.
Casarini, now 56 years old, is a far-left political activist. His name was almost unknown to Italians until the G8 summit held in Genoa in July 2001.
Even then, the G8 summits were accompanied by huge protests by the no-global movement. Silvio Berlusconi, the famous businessman and political leader who has died a few months earlier, had just won the elections and formed a centre-right government that would rule until the next elections in 2006. He saw the G8 in Genoa as an opportunity to consolidate his prestige as a political leader abroad. This made the protests even bigger and stronger.
Many of the anti-G8 associations in Genoa were united in the ‘Genoa Social Forum’. Casarini, on the other hand, was the leader of the so-called ‘White Suits’. Two months before the G8, during a press conference in Genoa, he launched a kind of war declaration to ‘the powerful of injustice and misery’. He also announced that he would disobey any measures taken by the authorities to ensure the safety of the G8 participants.
Continued below.
Why is this far-left political activist a guest at the Synod?
www.catholicworldreport.com
