Helping to find a human way of living together

I was born in Pavia, where I lived thoughout my childhood and adolescence. n my human and spiritual formation the experience with the Agesci scouts has been fundamental: they taught me the pleasure of community life and I discovered that service to others enriched my experience.

The meeting with the Jesuits and my deepest desires

After high school I enrolled in the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy. After graduating I worked as a librarian. During these years of work, I became more and more aware of the desire for a life consecrated to the Lord. I got to know the Jesuits by attending the community of Villapizzone in Milan and their summer activities in Selva di Val Gardena. I was attracted by the vast horizons that I saw opening up: a community spread throughout the world, many different apostolic sectors… I perceived that all this echoed with my most profound desires.

In 2006, after a period of discernment that included time in the vocational community of Bologna, I entered the novitiate in Genoa.

The years of formation

The long years of formation followed. From 2008 to 2010 I studied philosophy in Padua. This was followed by a time of apostolic activity in Trento, working with the hospitality community and with some street associations. Another significant apostolic experience I had during these years was with the San Marcellino Association in Genoa, which works with homeless people in the historic center of the Ligurian capital.

From 2012 to 2015, I attended the three-year Theology program in Paris. Afterwards, I spent a year of study and pastoral activity in Manila, Philippines. Upon returning to Italy, I was ordained a priest in 2016. I spent the following two years in Rome, studying a specialization in moral theology at the Gregorian University and working in youth ministry at La Sapienza University Chapel.

At the service of dialogue and research

In 2018, I began a new mission in Milan: editor of “Aggiornamenti Sociali,” a magazine that deals mainly with social, economic, political, and environmental issues. A peculiar mission for a priest. Its reasons are to be found in that heritage of the ecclesial magisterium called the Social Doctrine of the Church. It represents the Church’s effort to seek, today, “the Kingdom of God and his justice” (Matthew 6:33). A Church that does not close itself up in the reassuring domain of devotions, must assume the responsibility of a public word, seeking dialogue with the other actors of a complex society, to help find an authentically human way of living together. The second major source is Ignatian spirituality: a set of ways of “discerning,” that is, of reflecting to make a choice. This applies not only to private life, but also to the choices each of us makes as citizens. How to reason is the fundamental point: in a world in which communications are increasingly rapid, but often superficial, our mission is to offer tools to make conscious and free choices.