As Silvio Crudo said, at the end of the informal and friendly meeting on Armida Barelli, last Monday in the courtyard of the Cathedral of Fossano, there were in Italy “such extraordinary figures, only to risk disappearing over time and memory”. If this memory, like that of Barelli, were not now painstakingly recovered, thanks to a series of initiatives linked to her beatification, which took place last April 30 in Milan. Among these, the traveling exhibition that stops until July 13 in the Cathedral of Fossano. To then continue in other places and circumstances, such as in some youth camps.
Yes, the young people. Why propose to them a female figure from other times? What was it, and above all, what is fascinating about her message today? An attempt that Anna Maria Tibaldi (former regional delegate of the AC Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta) tried to convey to those present, about thirty people, also helped by some texts suggested for reading by the children (“Armida Barelli”, editions Franco Cosimo Panini, in comics) or, for an in-depth knowledge, the volume “The gypsy of the good God” (San Paolo editions, with a preface by Pope Francis).
Beyond her many ecclesial activities and responsibilities, of which one can be fully informed, she remains a spectacular figure of a woman, passionate about the things she believed in, and for which she spent herself in the gift of herself. In the meantime, it must always be remembered that she lived in another Italian context, between the 19th and 20th centuries: the one that relegated the role of the woman as sole wife and mother to her family context. She had the family, yes (“when she graduated she said that she would be her or a nun or mother of many children, but she was never a spinster!”). But her was a spiritual family, which took her as a model as an “elder sister” in the Women’s Youth of Catholic Action, to which she gave life, promoting the dignity of women in the round. In addition to other roles undertaken with enthusiasm, determination and “extraordinary organizational skills”. For all of her, the most famous of her was that of having been part of the promoting committee of the Catholic University, together with, among others, Father Agostino Gemelli, whose collaboration she will last throughout her life.
Her strong cultural background, thanks to her origins from the Milanese bourgeoisie, did not prevent her from “frequenting those who did not have the same knowledge” and from having a big heart for everyone. She is a secular woman, capable of holding up even to cardinals and popes with “no”, if she and when she deemed them necessary. She “she has traveled far and wide in Italy” to promote the initiatives she presided over, “overcoming the stereotypes of the time that saw her alone”. Not to mention “of all the contacts she maintained, in an era without telephones or internet …”.
His life of 69 years (1882-1952) died out in illness, accepted and offered. Her love for her to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (hence the name of the Catholic University) pushed her to a private consecration and a spirituality made up of prayer and action. A “push to always get involved, without being afraid of getting your hands dirty”, as Tibaldi said. That she, addressing all those present, especially Catholic Action, wished “to be able to intercept”, following her example, “the needs of popular culture”, thus going out to operate outside their own sphere of action.