A wooden cross, heavy and worn, that he wears at his waist, bears witness to the racking of this Scalabrinian missionary who has given his life to migrants. Italian, 78 years old, with a long white beard, energetic and tireless. Here we tell you more about Father Flor María.
Florenzo Rigoni or Flor María, as he was baptized when he arrived in Mexico in 1985, has traveled the world working on behalf of migrants. He currently directs the social works of the Scalabrini Corporation in Colombia.
The charism of his community – founded by today Saint John Baptist Scalabrini – is precisely the migrants and to them Father Flor has dedicated his 53 years of priesthood, in Europe, Asia and America.
Courtesy
flapping He spoke with him in Villa del Rosario, on the border between Colombia and Venezuela, where they have a reception center.
– Tell us about your family, your origins…
I was born in the middle of the war, in Premia, on the border between Italy and Switzerland. My birth was not easy, my mother was dying and they took me out with forceps, I still have the signs. Although I had no hope, three hours after I was born I had a low feeling and the doctor said ‘this little toad is still alive’ and here I am.
Already in my missionary work, during my years in Africa, I was in a coma due to cerebral malaria and they evicted me, they gave me two hours to live… but here I am. This confirmed my missionary dimension, I knew that God had sent me for something. I recently had a stroke which they say was mild. I also had asymptomatic covid… and here I am.
Always smiling, Father Flor expresses himself with the wisdom that comes from the great knowledge of human beings and divine mercy. He considers himself a migrant, but a voluntary migrant. Unlike those who have helped for decades, “they are condemned to migration.”
«I had two sisters: one died very young, at six months, they thought she had the flu but they didn’t know it was gastroenteritis and she died dehydrated. My other sister lives in Bergamo, where the family had settled, although dad kept moving because of his work with a large company. He was a trailer driver, a Caterpillar mechanic,” she added.
@scalabrinicol
– Is it true that at the age of ten he entered the seminary?
Yes, at ten years old! Something very curious happened that I read as a sign of salvation and vocation. Returning from vacation, which was the only time we were with dad because he worked abroad, I met a priest who was a survivor of the war. He came to my town as a vicar, already old, he was a man who left his mark. Then a missionary from my congregation arrived and there four boys signed up, three of whom are priests, one is a bishop in Brazil.
The problem was my mom who stopped me for a year and the next year wanted to stop me again. She had to go to the public telephone to consult my father, who was building a large dam between Switzerland and France. After an hour and a half they gave us communication and I was able to tell him that I wanted to enter the seminary.
He was shocked, he thought and told me: «Look, I don’t know to what extent you realize what he wants to do… Go away, I was also a missionary and I’ve been in Africa working… Do you want to go? You go. Do you want to return? You come back, the door remains open».
To this day I wonder how it was possible at 10 years old to say I’m leaving. Mom wasn’t against the priesthood, but she wanted me diocesan so she could keep a close eye on me and that was the last thing I wanted.
Courtesy
– Why did you want to be a missionary?
For two photos that this priest left that I will tell you about: one of a missionary on horseback in Brazil and another, of a missionary on a motorcycle in the mines of Belgium. Of course, those things didn’t come right away. Initially, I was a hundred kilometers from my city and my first big outing was as manager of the port of Genoa, the largest in the Mediterranean.
I asked the Ministry of the Navy to make an exception because the sailor’s passport was given up to 23 years of age, and I was 25. This is how I embarked as an electrician assistant (I had studied electrical theory). We were going to Japan and we had the Yom Kippur war, we had to go around Africa because we couldn’t go through the Suez Canal. We had 35 days of pure water and a total of eight months on board.
«In the sea you touch the immensity of God»
That was a unique experience: I always say that the Jesuits taught me Theology and Philosophy and the sea taught me all the spirituality that I have today. The sea is the cradle where you can touch the immensity of God. Out to sea, where the land disappears from the horizon, you see a sky that you will never see again, a sky that speaks, that little tremor of the stars becomes a dialogue. The sea contacts you with all humanity.
Since then, Father Flor María has not stopped traveling. He was on board for three years and his last long voyage was leaving Italy along the entire Pacific coast to the last port in Chile, to load copper.
Courtesy
– What happened at the end of life as a sailor?
I was ten years in Germany. A very profound experience in which I discovered the other German, not the German of the Nazis, but the industrial, social, civil German. A country where the public servant is truly someone who is waiting to serve you.
I have spent most of it with migrants from the American continent. I have been here for 39 years, I initially arrived in Mexico at the border with the United States, I was in California, Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, on the border of Mexico and Guatemala.
The Mexican migrant taught me to reinvent, morning after morning, the reasons for my song and my hope. I came from Germany where everything was planned and I had plenty of money, and I arrived in an area where so many migrants lose their lives, their families, their hope.
Father Flor left in Mexico several works that still remain and for his extraordinary work he received in 2020 the National Human Rights Award from the President of Mexico and was included in the 150 characters who have left their mark in that country.
@scalabrinicol
– When did you arrive in Colombia?
The first of March 2020 and the pandemic locked me up. was meant to Indonesia, but at the last moment my superiors changed my course. The first impression was very strange because I had to live a type of prison, or at least, of control, that we had not foreseen.
Although migrants are our charisma, and we work with forced mobility and refugees, here in Colombia we have another face that is the most difficult after trafficking: the displaced. It’s a real drama.
For them we work the scalabrinis through three Ciami centers: one in Cúcuta, one in Villa del Rosario and the one in Bogotá, precisely in the neighborhood of official prostitution.
45 years ago we arrived in this country and we work with migrants under the 3-pillar model: reception, formation and territory. We provide accommodation for people of any religion or of any color. We offer them training in trades that give them immediate or easy work and in which they do not need to invest much; We even give them the essential inputs so that they can start from their home or their hut.
The third point is the territory, the place where the migrant can settle and build together a common tomorrow. And with the territory, territoriality, because there is a school for my children, work for me and a reality where I can contribute and that is why I prepare myself.
– Have you felt tired?
Tired, yes, and disappointed, especially when there is no gratitude. There are populations that, in general, do not thank you very much. If they knew how many nights we stayed up to see how we paid the bills!
We also continue to work with the same commitment. The scalabrinos do not make any distinction of religion, sex, color or political ideology, what matters to us is the person and we add the Gospel.
I will continue until God gives me strength and then any beach suits me. I hope I don’t weigh on anyone. And, as Saint Paul says, as a missionary at heart, I don’t know if I should stay with you or say goodbye and go with God.
