60 years have passed since that “here I am” pronounced in the cathedral on 7 August 1965 in front of the then archbishop Francesco Fasola, but the ardor of the vocation, the zeal remained unchanged for Msgr. Eugenio Foti. Born in 1942, the Messina priest who grew up in the parish of San Luca in the area of Muricello, historical rector of the church of Portosalvo dei Sailors (currently closed for restorations) celebrated this important anniversary with many confreres priests to the mass presided by the auxiliary bishop Cesare Di Pietro. “Cultured priest, singer in love with Mary, joyful and exuberant”: these are the traits that Di Pietro wanted to highlight Msgr. Foti, who in his long vocational journey has experienced beautiful and important training experiences. It is thanks to him that the church located in the homonymous via Portosalvo of the sailors was embellished with paintings made by local artists within a unique Marian itinerary in Sicily, enhancing the theological biblical logic underlying the works themselves.
Graduated in Mariology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty Marianum in Rome, he was a professor at the San Tommaso Institute and at the Institute of High and Religious Higher Sciences (ALLIATIANUM) that he also directed. For 25 years, from 1982 to 2007 he was parish priest of the community of S. Antonio Abate on Corso Cavour and previously in Scarcelli (a hamlet of Saponara on the Tyrrhenian side of Messina) and vocational animator at the seminary. Author of numerous publications, the first in particular wanted to dedicate it to the Sanctuary of Dinnammare; He was a delegated judge in the diocesan phases of different causes of canonization, among the most recent one in the course of Sister Alfonsa of the repairing ancelle.