{"id":221037,"date":"2024-07-19T11:09:52","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T09:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/preprod.proterrasancta.org\/the-path-of-encounter-interview-with-father-quirico\/"},"modified":"2024-07-19T16:19:28","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T14:19:28","slug":"the-path-of-encounter-interview-with-father-quirico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preprod.proterrasancta.org\/en\/the-path-of-encounter-interview-with-father-quirico\/","title":{"rendered":"The Path of Encounter: Interview with Father Quirico"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Here the encounter with the other<\/strong>, the openness to the different, does not represent a choice but a fact, our daily life”.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

With a full and round voice, an Apulian cadence that more than forty years lived in the Middle East cannot hide; Father Quirico Calella<\/strong>, a Franciscan of the Holy Land, has been in Tripoli<\/strong> for eight years, a port city in northern Lebanon, the second largest city in the country after the capital Beirut.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Where does your vocation come from? What prompted you to leave your country and reach Lebanon?<\/h3>\n\n

Vocation is not something that is discovered in an instant; It is a journey<\/strong> that takes a long time. I remember when as a child I met two Franciscan Friars of the Custody of the Holy Land; that encounter that marked me to the point of deciding to go to Rome to attend the Minor Seminary. From here began a journey that led me, as soon as I came of age, to leave for the Holy Land: I still remember my father’s tears at the airport, it was a shock<\/strong> that forced me to search even more for the reasons for my choice.<\/p>\n\n

After ordination in Rome in 1975 I was sent to Nazareth<\/strong> where I remained for eighteen years and then transferred to Acre where for twenty-one years I was parish priest and rector of the Catholic School. In 2016 I had already started several projects, but my Superior asked me to abandon everything to move to Tripoli<\/strong> in Lebanon, a country I did not know in any way. I left out of obedience<\/strong> and, once I arrived, I worked hard to fit into my new home; However, I found a certain closure on the part of the people I met, it seemed that no one wanted to allow me to access this world.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Black<\/figure><\/div>\n

So, a whole new shock…<\/h3>\n\n

Yes, a new trial that I found myself facing in my vocational journey. What allowed me to go forward was, on the one hand, the trust<\/strong> I had in my superiors who had thought of me for this task, and on the other, my desire to discover <\/strong>God’s plans in this place. So I started working and organizing events to promote and make our Mission known; a method that continues today and that has allowed not only Christians but also many Muslims to be informed about the many projects we are working on.<\/p>\n\n

For example?<\/h3>\n\n

In recent years we have built a sports center<\/strong> where we host a summer camp for children and where there is also a judo gym where they hold competitions at national level; a paediatric clinic<\/strong> was then opened that we called Francis and the Sultan<\/em> \u2013 a name that implies our intention to create a place of dialogue and support<\/strong> for anyone in need, to which this year we have also associated gynecology. In addition, we distribute food and drug packages and help families pay school fees in a society that in recent years has seen an exponential growth in the number of poor people, even among Christians.<\/p>\n\n

\"Father
Father Quirico together with Pietro, Alberto and the children of Tripoli.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What does it mean to promote dialogue in Lebanon?<\/h3>\n\n

For more than 800 years, the Custody of the Holy Land has been working every day to promote encounter with others<\/strong>; After all this time, one would expect a greater result than the current one, but this is not the point. Instead, it is necessary to continue to work and leave the task of pulling the strings to God.<\/p>\n\n

In 2021 I dedicated, together with some friends, to writing the musical opera <\/strong>“Francis and the Sultan”: the result was a show that we staged four times, twice in Tripoli and twice in our capital. In particular, on March 25, 2022, the exhibition took place at the UNESCO headquarters in Beirut; On that occasion, a large part of the national government, which had not met for some time, met to attend the event.<\/p>\n\n

Usually, when a crisis breaks out, areas such as music are the last to be revived; we, on the other hand, wanted them to be the first<\/strong>: these, in fact, are the essential tools to start again and to allow our mission to become, with the help of St. Francis, a real center of dialogue and encounter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"A
A staging of “Francis and the Sultan”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n
\n
Listen to the performance of “Francis and the Sultan”!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/div>\n\n

Article by Alberto Perrucchini<\/em>Photographs (the first, the second and the one in evidence) by Giovanni Dinatolo<\/em><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Father Quirico Calella, a Franciscan who arrived in Tripoli in 2016, tells his story and his social and spiritual commitment in Lebanon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":221017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9753,9742],"tags":[],"campaign_code":[],"class_list":["post-221037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlight","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nInterview with Father Quirico Calella | Pro Terra Sancta<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The encounter is what Father Quirico promotes in Lebanon every day, thanks to projects that promote inclusion and solidarity.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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