The announcement was made by Mons. Ligorio, entrusting Don Antonio Savone with the “pastoral responsibility and the silent warning in favor of a youth that deserves more care and attention”
The Metropolitan Archbishop of Potenza – Muro Lucano Monsignor Salvatore Ligorio has started in the diocese “a functional reorganization to respond to pastoral needs that concern the diocesan community but also individual parishes”. It is with these premises that the Archbishop’s note opens in which he announces that the Church of the Holy Trinity in the heart of the historic center of Potenza – in whose attic, on March 17, 2010, the corpse of Elisa Claps, the student from Potenza who disappeared on 12 September 1993, when she was 16 years old and for whose murder Danilo Restivo was definitively sentenced to 30 years in prison, currently detained in England also for the murder of Heather Barnett, which took place in Bournemouth on 12 November 2002 – “will become a new center of spirituality”. Basically, according to what was declared by Mgr.Ligorio, the church known to the local black news as well as nationally and internationally – in which renovation works have been underway for some years that have also involved the annexed rectory, which has been demolished and will be rebuilt. – at the end of the building interventions it will reopen its doors to the faithful from the Potentines to become “an oasis of faith and hope in the heart of the historic center, a silent warning in favor of a youth that deserves more care and attention from the Church and the society”. In this regard, Monsignor Ligorio has entrusted the current parish priest of the cathedral, Don Antonio Savone, with the responsibility of the Trinity as soon as the church is reopened, at the conclusion of the work in progress. Alongside him, Don Giovanni Caggianese will operate as a coparroco. Therefore, the note of the Metropolitan Archbishop, which promised to be a very normal “dislocation of the clergy in response to particular needs of the territory but also to the needs linked to the age of many now elderly priests”, in particular, in the historic center of Potenza, also due to the strong demographic decline in recent decades, it has proved to be a real bolt from the blue. It was, yes, news leaked to the news already in March of last year after the communication of the resumption of work made, again by means of a press release, by Mons.Ligorio, but it then fell back quietly, with the awareness of most of the Potentines that this would be a choice in the first place that would find the opposition of Elisa’s family who have always been firm in their position against “omissions and lies, offending the memory of Elisa and the sensitivity of those who would never want to return to celebrate functions in that church religious “. Yet, the note seems to be clear on the question: the Church of the Trinity, albeit “with the recent history behind it linked to the tragedy of Elisa, will have as its specific pastoral address that of proposing itself to believers, seekers of God and all citizens, as a center of spirituality, prayer and reflection ». So, once the restoration and consolidation works have been completed – for a total of 2.4 million euros, with funds apparently of regional origin and from the Italian Episcopal Conference – the reopening of the church for worship, closed right from the day of the discovery of Elisa’s body. , twelve years ago, it should happen soon. Other movements of priests will concern Don Marcello Cozzi who will be co-parish in the parish of Sant’Anna and Gioacchino, also in Potenza, and Don Giuseppe De Marco who will take care of the vicariate of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Other transfers concern the pastoral area of Muro Lucano, Tito and the Melandro valley, and the Val d’Agri. In detail: do Sojan John becomes parish priest of all the parishes of Muro Lucano. Instead, Don Pompeo Monaco arrives in Balvano; to Savoia di Lucania don Mosè Ekoude. In Val d’agri, Don Giovanni Pecile was appointed parish administrator of San’Antonino martyr in Grumento Nova and Don Antonio Petrone was appointed chaplain of the hospital of Villa d’Agri. The archbishop thanked everyone “for the acceptance of the new office aimed at an ever more intense evangelization and at the same time he expressly expressed a strong feeling of esteem for the common mission of witnesses to the gospel”.
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