Today, 25 March, is the anniversary of the birth of Brother Ettore Boschini, who was born in the hamlet of Belvedere in the commune of Roverbella (Mantua) in 1928. Below is a passage taken from the book by Luciano Moia, Fratel Ettore. Una vita per gli ultimi (‘Brother Hector. A Life for the Least’).

Moia, Fratel Ettore. Una vita per gli ultimi (Edizioni Camilliane, Turin, 2004), 134pp.

‘St. Camillus in not to be Touched’. The Muslim Allies of Ettore

Amongst the few who avoided abstruse theorisations and hurried to help the immigrants there was, as usual, Brother Ettore. From the first weeks of the occupation, this Camillian led his volunteer troops in the building of Città Studi with a well supplied logistical apparatus of aid and help: axes, work tools, bricks and canvasses to repair the roofs, the windows and the doors; cauldrons of pasta with sauce and sacks of bread to do justice to stomachs; and mattresses and blankets to forget about the cardboard boxes.

In short, the friend of the homeless also became the tireless and caring leader of ‘cascina Rosa’. All the immigrants learnt to know about and appreciate the friar with the red cross who suffered and sweated with them without imposing anything and without wanting anything in exchange.

Some people, inside the city council as well, asked themselves whether if was right for this Camillian to provide help to the protagonists of an illegal occupation, whereas others launched the usual accusations of opportunistic solidarity and forced religious proselytism. Nothing could have been more false. Amongst the four-hundred people from outside the European Community, all of whom were Muslims, nobody ever complained about attempts that had not been requested at evangelisation on the part of Brother Ettore.

     Indeed, in September 1990, after a second eviction of the building in Largo Murani – the first in October the previous year by the urban police had not produced the effects hoped for by the city council because within a few days the building had been re-occupied – the spokesman of these immigrants from outside the European Community recognised that ‘the man most attentive to our problems, the only person who has always given a hand in a disinterested way, has been Brother Ettore’….

In the rooms of the occupied building the volunteers of one of the most politicised associations encountered the volunteers of Brother Ettore who for weeks had organised the aid machine, cleaned the rooms, and organised as best as possible tens of camp-beds. With axes, work tools and other indispensable things, this Camillian has also wanted a sign to indicate his presence: a large picture of St. Camillus which he had immediately hung at the entrance of the building. This was not an attempt at proselytism – only a symbol to indicate that inside an attempt was being made to alleviate suffering with the same weapons used five centuries previously by the saint of Abruzzi: love, charity, total self-dedication. The Muslims understood that they also welcomed St. Camillus….

‘I have in my pocket the pass of my superiors. They said to me ‘Ettore, do you what you have to’ . And my mission is here, amongst these people, to fight and suffer with them. To cry out to the world of the powerful how hard and impossible their lives are. These people are worse off than dogs. Animals have specialist clinics, kennels, and veterinarians who look after them. Let us at least treat these brothers of ours as dogs’.

Hard, severe and uncompromising words. Like the front line that this Camillian chose to give to the least. Not only the homeless, not only the mentally ill, not only immigrants.