He teaches systematic theology at the Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in Bologna, of which he is also director. On his curriculum there are many academic publications, but “all this,” he explains, “is just my Apollonian side.” Because Marco Tibaldi, 60, from Bologna, also engaged part time as a professor of Philosophy in a high school, has never denied his great passion for theater: a love that comes from afar and that makes him a very skilled communicator of the reasons for his faith and in particular the stories of the Bible. “I just try to tell these wonderful stories, which have withstood the centuries and continue to concern us closely, in a funny way, with a light and funny language, to involve adults and young people first and then, cascading, the little ones “.
Telling to understand
Recently, from these forays into the history of salvation, a book was also born, Soups, whales and lost sheep. Stories of women, men and things from the extraordinary world of the Bible, Terra Santa editions, a text in which Tibaldi updates the stories and characters of the Book, trying to shorten that distance that risks making them inaccessible for some. “I can say that this is my Dionysian side”, he explains with irony, “something that has been part of my life since I was a kid, the same passion of those who start playing football as a child and would like to never stop “.
If the Bible makes a show
A playful side that starts from his character and owes a lot to the human and spiritual formation of the university days, linked to the world of the Jesuits. A spirituality that is very attentive to mediation and the communicative style. Thus, even before the idea of the book took shape, Tibaldi founded an amateur company, Gli Amici di Guido, with which he travels Italy staging stories from the Bible and beyond.
“Let’s go where they call us”, he says, “we have participated in the Franciscan Festival, the Biblical Festival, various training meetings, all experiences obviously linked to our circuits”. A small company that can basically count on two actors, Tibaldi and his daughter Laura, a professional educator and singer, and on the contribution of musicians only if the budget allows it. “When we are on stage, however, we become thirty thanks to the puppets and masks created by our friends from Bologna artisans”, clarifies.
This is how the colorful magic of his theater was born, as evidenced by the catechetical videos recorded in his home, in times of pandemic, and present on his website. Because not even Covid has managed to dampen the enthusiasm of the storyteller professor. “It was the director of the National Catechetical Office, Monsignor Valentino Bulgarelli, who asked me to make some contributions, initially for adults for the Easter Triduum, at a time when even catechesis, in full lockdown, was in difficulty: then what what is born “.
Like “the home theater”, set up with a lot of curtain between the living room bookcases to create, always with the contribution of masks and puppets, videos dedicated to children. Thus were born the stories of the donkey Amul, a kind and patient donkey who on Palm Sunday brings Jesus to Jerusalem, and that of the sparrow Ciuciu, who tries to remove the thorns from the head of Jesus with its beak and thus stains its chest. of blood and turns into a robin.
Stories that speak to life
Delicate and never banal stories, like those referring to the biblical characters transferred in the book. The two “retirees”, Abraham and Sarah, the “swindler” Jacob, Moses the liberator, Naaman “the barbarian” … «These are stories that each of us feels the need otherwise the success of some television series or reality TV would not be explained who basically ask the same questions, even if they are generally weak in the answers. How do you find the right person? How can relationships in the family be mended? ».
Programs that the teacher talks about quietly with his students. “Of course, because philosophy can also be explained starting from our emotional experience, so much so that in general, with third high school students, I start by listening to and analyzing the text of Un Sense, the song by Vasco Rossi that best represents the crisis of post-modern truth “, keep on. “Children must understand that behind every philosopher there is a true experience of which the teacher is the intermediary, but to do this one must always get involved”. And at this point his theater and the ability to tell stories come to his aid.
Death and life that rises again
“The stories of the Bible give answers to our deepest questions, in dialogue with the other great narratives of antiquity, such as the epic of Gilgamesh, Greek mythology and literary narratives”he concludes. “Besides, it could not be otherwise, because God uses the history of men to speak and in every man there is the spark of God”. Enthusiasm continues to leak out of his words, even though the past year for Professor Tibaldi has been very hard.
After thirty years of marriage, in May 2021 he lost his wife Daniela, to whom he was very close. A very difficult moment for him and for his four children, Laura, Giacomo, Simone and Emanuele, on a scale from 29 to 24 years old. “Daniela left a great void, but she also gave us an important testimony of faith, living this moment of transition with great strength and serenity,” he says. Almost unwittingly, just last summer he dedicated one of her representations to her, staged in the Jesuit holiday home in Selva di Val Gardena. This time her masks told the story of Alcestis, the protagonist of the homonymous tragedy with a happy ending by Euripides, the only example for Plato of pure and disinterested love.
According to Greek mythology, in fact, Alcestis, wife of Admetus, king of Fere, agreed to die in place of her husband and for this reason Hercules, moved by his sacrifice, descended into Hades, the kingdom of the dead in the classical tradition, to bring her back to life and return it to the groom. «The superior of the house, who knew Daniela, helped me to read a beautiful story of resurrection in the myth of Alcestis».
Who is
Age 60 years
Profession professor of Theology and Philosophy
Family widower of Daniela, father of 4 children
Passion reciting the stories of the Bible through recitation
Marco Tibaldi: The theologian who explains the Bible with puppets