Building Bridges: From Parma, Italy to Morocco
Fr. Pietro Rossini, SX
The author, Fr. Pietro Rossini, studied at Boston University and earned a Masters in Science in Journalism. He was assigned to our community at Our Lady of Fatima Shrine and was ordained a deacon at the local parish, St. Mary’s Church in Holliston, Massachusetts. Presently he is part of our international media team, MissionNet in Parma, Italy. This post is during an assignment where he was part of a video project with the Xaverian Missionaries in Morocco. We are grateful to The Xaverian Missionaries website in Rome.
“You’re part of my family because you brought me a piece of my son”.
These are the words I heard from a Moroccan mother when I brought her news of her son imprisoned in Parma, Italy.
*For this article we will use fictitious names respecting the privacy of the people involved in this story.
Abdoul, 22, was arrested eight months ago, during which time he could not have any contact with his mother living in Morocco. Convicted of drug dealing, he was banned from communicating with the outside world.
I met Abdoul two weeks before going to Morocco to work on a documentary as part of the MissioNET group.
Since October, every week, I have visited the inmates of the prison of Parma together with the Xaverian Sister, Anna Vergani.
“Abdoul, you know I’m going to your country soon?” I told him at one of our weekly meetings. “Y adonde vas?” he replied in Spanish, asking me the exact city I was going to visit.
“Please meet my mom,” Abdoul told me, jumping with joy from side to side of the room in the middle of a room in the middle-security department, “She lives in that area”.
Abdoul and I could not believe that I would go to Fnideq, the same city from which he came and the same area where our fellow Xaverians have been located for four years. Fnideq has 77,000 inhabitants and the two Xaverians are the only Christians in a country where 99% of the people are Muslim.
A few weeks after meeting with Abdoul, Anna managed to get her mother’s number, contact her lawyer.
And that’s how we met.
It happened during the month of Ramadan, a sacred time for Muslims when they fast, pray, and give alms. In this period, the rhythm of life changes completely. People fast from dawn to dusk and all life flows more slowly giving more space to prayer and the study of the Koran.
Fatima, Abdoul’s mother, invited me to an Iftar, the breaking of the fast that Muslims do every day of Ramadan after sunset.
Together with Rolando Ruiz, one of the Xaverians living in Fnideq, and Gabriel Arroyo with whom we work in the MissioNET group, we headed to meet this woman.
My heart was full of trepidation.
I couldn’t believe this was really going to happen.
It was one of the best and strongest encounters I’ve ever had.
Fatima wore a hijab, the traditional veil that Muslim women use to cover their heads. We were at the restaurant where he worked.
There were no hugs or kisses on the cheeks, as is the custom of the place. But Fatima received us with a beautiful smile.
She made her way to a table reserved for us. On top of the table, to each seat, there were some dates, a boiled egg and a glass of milk, all typical elements of the break of the fast during the month of Ramadan.
We sat down and there was a moment of introductions.
Rolando translated our conversation from Darija into Spanish and sometimes even one of the waiters would come up to help us understand each other.
After the first moment of getting acquainted, Fatima asked me, “Abdoul how is he? Do you know when he’s getting out of prison?”
I told her about the fact that we meet once a week, that Abdoul is well and that he seems to me a guy full of energy and with a joyful character that does not fall easily.
“He is my son!” she exclaimed, confirming the description I gave of her son.
I will never forget the joy in the eyes of Fatima.
It was the joy of a mother receiving news from her son who had left home when he was only 16. Abdoul swam across the gulf between Fnideq and Ceuta, a part of Morocco that is administratively part of Spain. After being detained in juvenile centres for migrants, he moved to Spain working as a barber. He entered Italy and was offered an easy job.
“I made a mistake,” Abdoul tells me every time I visit. “I know I shouldn’t have ended up here. Real life is out there, and I can’t wait to get out”.
We spent two hours together in Fatima.
The call to prayer that came from the mosque accompanied our conversation, which seemed imbued with the presence of God who we met on that table as a bridge between two worlds so distant.
Two hours was enough to make me realize how small the world is. And how our founder’s dream of “Making the world one family” is already a reality. We must only open our eyes to realize this and to seize all the opportunities to grow in communion and in human fraternity.
We set out to accompany Fatima home.
She felt so close to us that she accepted.
Fatima broke so many taboos for a Muslim woman that evening: she took the initiative in inviting a man to dinner, decided to dine with three men in a public place, and agreed to be accompanied home by three strangers.
All things a Muslim woman would never have chosen to do unless these men had allowed her, even for a moment, to meet her son again.
Dropping Fatima off at her place, I hugged her.
I forgot for a moment the taboos and customs of the Muslim world. That wasn’t the time to ask too many questions. It was time to make a mother feel the presence of a child that she missed so much.
Rolando had told me and Gabriel that one of the main purposes of the Xaverian presence in Morocco is to be a bridge between the Christian and Muslim world.
“You were this bridge,” Rolando told us, “I witnessed that tonight, meeting this woman.”
About The Author
