Most of the tourists (and pilgrims) still experience awe as they travel around the city of Rome. Many masterpieces were made or inaugurated in one of the many Holy Years from 1300 until today. From the Ponte Sisto to the stairs at Trinità dei Monti, even if the typical tour guide does not explain all this. If one can compare small things to great things, it was in the Jubilee of 2000, in the month of May, that the diocese of Rome entrusted to the Fraternity of St. Charles the youth center of Colle Oppio, which means that this year marks 25 years of activity. As Fr. Sergio Ghio, who from the beginning of this reality was its craftsman and faithful maker, recounts: “The Young Center was indicated to us by Msgr. Luigi Moretti who, at the time, was Auxiliary Bishop for the Central part of the Diocese of Rome: it was a historical oratory which had become an abandoned space, both physically and in terms of its educational proposal. For us it was immediately of particular interest and meaning.”
“The Center is the face of my friends. It is here that I find them.”
In fact, photographs of the initial deterioration of the “Oratorio Sebastiani” (the sign is still visible) give an idea of the prodigious recovery of this place, which the elusive Don Sergio does not dwell on. He likes to emphasize that the Diocese at the time, led by Cardinal Vicar Camillo Ruini, placed its trust in a small group of high school students who had begun to meet regularly, keep each other company, and organize activities such as the “Raggio.” The real bet was on those people: the restoration, the practical work, and the solidarity gathered would have been useless without that fervor of life. “We started with about ten young people meeting every day in these premises in Via delle Sette Sale. We tidied them up and made them more and more our own, in an unplanned, somewhat unexpected way. Today, after 25 years, we must humbly acknowledge that the Center has grown considerably in awareness, in numbers, and in the people it has met. It has literally changed the lives of some people.“
25 years is a long time, a quarter of a century. There are several adults who, together with Fr. Sergio, have helped develop this place from the beginning. Stefano Alessandrini is still the president of the Association for Social Promotion, which helps develop this place: ”I got to know the Center when my eldest daughter started high school and began attending it. My involvement came almost naturally, observing that what was good for her (and later also for her siblings) could also be good for me. In trying to help in some way in the construction of that place, a friendship was born with Don Sergio and other adults that made me become more and more involved. Intensely re-proposed, lived and poured out into the world. We are a small thing when we consider the city of Rome and the life of the Church, but we are a part of it and absolutely within it. And in a world where it is increasingly difficult to experience community (Christian but also civil), our reality can constitute, without presumption, an example of education in faith that can be encountered and lived. Angelo Rinaldi, a thoroughbred of Italian journalism and graphic design, adds: “The Center is the face of my friends. It is here that I find them and it is here that our companionship has grown over the years. The simplicity of gestures and the sharing of needs have educated and enriched my life and my faith, and the Center has remained a fixed point.”
Staying, remaining. Stories of adults, perhaps “brought” to the Center by their children and remaining even when they leave, get married, move to another city, enter a monastery, or join the Fraternity of St. Charles. Alessandra Pizzi, who organizes the work of the mothers in the kitchen, says: “The experience of the Center, through doing things together and sharing life in its various facets, from the education of children to the witness of faith, has allowed me to understand more that life is a task and asks to be offered freely. The whole unfolding of life can find in a place like this, which has become ‘home,’ the emotional and educational point that allows everyone, and together, to be accompanied and supported on the journey.”
Three years after the beginning of this reality, the Diocese entrusted Fr. Sergio Ghio and the Fraternity of St. Charles with the parish of Navicella, the beautiful church of Santa Maria in Domnica, also in the Colosseum area, not far from the center. Fr. Sergio recounts: “At that time, it became necessary to understand how to organize the ordinary life of a parish with all its activities, taking into account the specificity of our charism and our history. We therefore decided to offer elementary school children an experience similar to what we were already offering high school and middle school students.”
The structure of the activities offered today is simple: every day, from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m., the Center offers young people the opportunity to get together, study together, and talk. Every Friday afternoon, there is the “raggio”: beginning with a point of order, a question or a theme, following one of Fr. Luigi Giussani’s texts, the young people are invited to reflect critically on their lives, their days, what they feel and what is happening in the world. On Saturdays, the elementary school children meet with the “Stelle di San Lorenzo” (Stars of St. Lawrence). And those from middle school meet with the “Barca di Pietro” (Peter’s Boat). Fr. Paolo Di Gennaro, assistant parish priest of Navicella, says, “For me, this is a return because I was here at the Center 17 years ago as a seminarian with the Barca di Pietro, and I’ve come back to a familiar place. I’ve found many friends, many people I knew, who have grown up in the meantime and started families. And they’ve stayed, they’ve continued in this adventure. However, I have also met many new people, a sign that in recent years, the community has grown and many people have come together.“ Andrea La Piana, a deacon on the eve of his ordination as a priest, also looks after the Stelle and the Barca, assisted by the seminarians of San Carlo. Andrea says: ”It’s great that there are so many young people, so many kids who attend the Center. I will continue to be with them, Stelle and Barca, and during the week I also work with the high school students.” Anna Amoroso, a true veteran of the Stelle di San Lorenzo, which she runs together with Sister Giulia Parete and Laura Rodella of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles and two other adults, Patrizia Campomaggiore and Jacopo Bernabei, says: “I met Fr. Sergio when he was entrusted with the Center in 2000. Finally, right behind my house, there was a place where my older children could share their Christian life with other kids. That beginning then became an opportunity for me, especially after the Navicella and the birth of the Stelle di San Lorenzo.”
“A place that has become ‘home,’ an emotional and educational hub”
An initiative that has emerged in recent years is the Family Dinner: it is simply the parents of the children and young people who attend the activities are invited to get together on Saturday evenings and eat together. It is not uncommon for cultural events to be offered on Saturday afternoons during the Barca and Stelle activities. This was the case with the series of meetings entitled “The task of educating,” which saw experts and practitioners discuss educational responsibility. Over the years, the Center has welcomed public figures, writers, artists, professors, and even simple witnesses of volunteer work and presence who have forged a bond with this reality. From Luigi Ballerini to Franco Nembrini, from Mauro Magatti to Eraldo Affinati, from Mario Calabresi to Andrea Monda, from Wael Farouk to Gigi De Palo. The Center has also had many friends and admirers in the ecclesiastical sphere over the past 25 years, starting with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi and the Catholic Bishop of Moscow, Paolo Pezzi. Don Sergio Ghio concludes: “In all its simplicity, an experience like that of the Youth Center allows us to understand the Christian proposal. What the Holy Father Francis called the ‘Church going forth’ means the possibility of having a strong, clear place that broadens everyone’s horizons and allows them to go forth with greater certainty into the world.”
