Dear Friends,
on 6th January 2024, Central Assembly of the International Private Association of Faithful Nuovi Orizzonti was held, with elections for new offices for the next five years, and I was re-elected President.
After accepting this nomination, however, I experienced a further breakdown in health and an aggravation of several alarming symptoms. Unwillingly, I had to reopen discernment about the compatibility of my weak health with the many commitments associated with the role of President.
I have actually had to undergo several medical consultations. The persistence of a high risk of both stroke and heart attack, in an overall picture characterized by numerous pathologies and four very advanced syndromes, which make the management of restraint therapies particularly complex, has led the various medical specialists who follow me, to express their great concern and to confirm the incompatibility of my health with the very high levels of stress that have characterized my life for too long.
Although my precarious health condition has been my“thorn in the flesh”for a long time now, supported by His grace that manifests itself precisely on weakness (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9), in these thirty years of Nuovi Orizzonti, due to the rapid growth of the Community and the resultant exponential multiplication of the serious responsibilities, delicate decisions and very heavy crosses related to the leadership of this great Family, I have had to keep up with an extremely exhausting lifestyle. All this has contributed to exhausting my body beyond all possibilities. As a result, although the pains have become for many years widespread, chronic and unbearable, I have learnt to live with the many and increasingly pressing symptoms, which, however, stand for serious warning signs and which I should definitely have listened to… Nevertheless, every time I tried there was a new, unavoidable emergency to which I had to respond.
In the light of this umpteenth collapse of mine, having heard the opinion of the doctors who follow me, I had to take note that my health situation is no longer compatible with the increasingly pressing and numerous commitments related to the role of President, at the head of this huge and complex organization.
At this time of great tribulation and so delicate for the whole world, it did not seem good to me to leave the leadership of Nuovi Orizzonti; in fact, I hoped I could make it through a little longer. However, I had not planned for such a dangerous further collapse of my health right after the election.
And so, with great sorrow I had to make the decision to officially submit my resignation to Pope Francis and the Dicastery of Laity, Family and Life, handed on 11th February 2024, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.
I am now sharing with all of you this important decision, so that you may pray for me and for the Nuovi Orizzonti family; in fact, the leadership of the organization will be in this time entrusted to the new offices elected on 6th January 2024, while waiting to understand with the Dicastery of Laity, Family and Life how to continue, because according to the current General Statutes, with the resignation of the President all offices expire and a new President must be elected. Let us pray for those who will have to lead the community through this time and guide it in the next few years. Of course, I will be always there, but in a different way. On the other hand, we do not have to worry about anything, because this Work is God’s and He will be the one to continue to guide it through the very stormy waters of this time.
Counting on your prayers at this particularly difficult time for me, you can count on mine. I am grateful to God for the many miracles of resurrection contemplated in these thirty years. I am certain that we will contemplate many more together. Let us remain in communion in seeking to fully surrender to the Will of the Father, repeating our “In Manus Tuas Domine.”