Fedele Bisceglia father passed away on a very hot August day. And of these, hot, he had lived many but with the same spirit of the other days he wore the habit and made himself available to the last, forgotten and poor. And poor, empty, sad, we all feel like this like this. Cosenza has lost his real spiritual compass. Because when the Gospel is made an example and translates into charity it has a whole other aspect even in the eyes of the faithful. We could come pages and pages – paper and virtual – mentioning the dozens and dozens of charitable works carried out all over the world (from Cosenza to Africa, his second “home”), we could return to talk about a judicial investigation that has turned off after a long media pillory and which essentially produced the crumble of the Franciscan Oasis (prelude to the birth of the Paradise of the poor) or still of the content offered by the content offered by the content offered by the content Church that, a few days ago, offered him the opportunity to celebrate Mass, making a veto fall too late. No, it would not be corrected for those who have never known Father Fedele Bisceglia.
Love for Cosenza: that day at the conference, the funeral of Marulla, the feeling with Marco Grandinetti and the dream of Pescara
Those few who have never come across, directly or by hearsay, in the figure of the Cosenza monk they deserve to know him through the anecdotes. Let me be clear, I personally had the opportunity to approach the friar far ahead in his life – for personal issues – and probably – indeed, surely – I would be among the least titled to tell it. However, at the same time, having had the good fortune to share some significant moments with him, it would be selfish to keep them for me.
I remember, for example, Father Fedele at the press conference. But not alongside the journalists or as a (visceral) fan of Cosenza, but on the other side of the “barricade”, as president of Cosenza Calcio 1914. Yes, because Father Fedele also wore the role of number one of the society at the time of homemade dualism with the Incaccì. It comes to smile, if today we think that those who drive Cosenza is completely at the antipodes in terms of passion: because, yes, Father Fedele was undoubtedly the president, albeit for a short time, more passionate in the history of Cosenza. I was a very young sports reporter and I remember him in a room of the “San Vito” stadium surrounded by a few colleagues: he answered the questions, he was shown because he understood that football Bruzio was experiencing a nefarious era, but at the same time it was credible, sincere.
And the other episodes are also related to football. Starting with the funeral of Gigi Marulla, a “son” favorite among the favorites of Father Fedele. Because of the veto, he could not celebrate the funeral of the late rossoblù bomber, but the people from Cosenza will certainly remember the words shouted to the megaphone from the friar at the end of the celebration, while the drums of Stilo Tamburino left Piazza Loreto sadly, that everything else. In the very recent years, between Serie C and the beginning of the new parenthesis in B, Father Fedele made a fixed couple in the press grandstand with the red and blue SuperTifoso Marco Grandinetti – Son of Pasquale, an institution for those who know the history of Cosenza Calcio -: “If there is no Marco, the game does not start”, ironized with those present, before sitting next to the boy and to live with him 90 minutes of passion. Finally Pescara. The second rossoblù Pescara: not that of Gigi, against Salernitana, but the most recent that sanctioned the return to B after 3 decades lived in the anonymity (or almost) of the ball. Here, being fresher, that day I remember him well because, in the company of his colleague Danilo Perri, we spent the hours preceding the race together with Father Fedele. We met the friar, a few steps from the stadium, suffering from the heat, crushed by the tension in view of the match against Siena but very confident. Already at the time (2018) he was not very well, weeded out from age and suffering, but he did not want to miss the appointment with the story. He waved continuously but with a fixed thought: «Guagliù, cumu in Viditi Oji? Saglimu? ». Repeated almost like a mantra, before responding alone thanks to its proverbial trust towards life and towards others: “Yes, yes, quiet ca Saglimu …”. Other times, later, I had the opportunity to meet and interview Fedal Father, more and more folded in the physicist but not in the spirit: at the cemetery, in Piazza Kennedy, in front of a church. He never skimped a word of hope or a smile, accompanied by the trusted Teresa Boerio. And I will never forget those eyes full of charity. From today we are all poorer.