P. Guglielmo Camera
Photo: parchiacava.it
By Gianluca Giorgio
FIDENZA, August 18, 2022 / 4:00 PM (ACI Print) .-
On April 1, 2020, Father Guglielmo Camera passed away in the hospital of Fidenza. Xaverian missionary, postulator of the institute and great witness of the Gospel, remembering its name is opening the memory to the very good accomplished during one’s existence. He was 79 years old.
A coherent and beautiful life lived in the light of the mission. Many activities undertaken for the people, but more between people.
The religious was born on April 25, 1940 in Marinoni di Ardesio, in the province of Bergamo. Very young he entered the Xaverian family, founded by San Guido Maria Conforti.
Pupil in Cremona in 1953, he completed his classical studies up to theology. A novice in San Pietro in Vincoli, a community to which he too will return later, he makes his religious profession living his charism. It is October 3, 1960. Father Giovanni Gazza, novice master, will write an excellent profile. After his formation he was ordained a priest in Parma. It is 1968.
Many communities have seen him very active and proactive. From Parma to Sierra Leone where since 1981 he has carried out various projects, for all of them he has a word and attention.
Graduated in literature and other specializations, he makes use of the talents possessed in the places where he is called to work. Special priest knows how to look at the real needs of the people.
Postulator for the canonization causes of the Xaverian Missionaries, he carried out important processes such as that of his founder and Father Uccelli, Benedetta Bianchi Porro and the beatification of mother Anna Maria Adorni.
Written biographies and interviews show precision and care in the ministry entrusted. Culture, careful research and that way of knowing how to tell, but more to embody a spirituality are the elements present in the works of Father Camera.
Whoever has opened his books has understood not only a life, but he has felt the liberating force of the gospel that pushes us to do good.
In 2018 he celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his priestly ordination. An important stage lived with the usual generosity and joy.
There are many testimonies of esteem and affection towards the priest: confreres and friends have highlighted that way of being, made up of spontaneity, altruism, and love for one’s neighbor and for the Church.
Opening the Xaverian sources we learn that the missionary is called to be: “With an open mind and a broad heart he will go out to meet men; he will gladly accept the tasks entrusted to him, he will be able to courageously adapt to the diversity of customs of peoples and to changing situations “(Ad Gentes 25). This is the portrait.
Faith and good were the great loves of Father Camera who, contemplating the sky, spread the Gospel for the good of humanity and the brothers he met on his journey.