There is no one who has not heard of him, ad Assumption. For most, he is a saint. For others, "only" a good guy priest, tireless, and combative. And even a little controversial ... But his specialty is not words (even if he evangelizes and "provokes" the "Sunday Christians" also by writing, as well as in masses and in many personal interviews) but facts. It is for these that it is known.
Don Aldo Trento ("el Padre Trento") is the priest of the discarded. He gave birth to one great and branched social work, with a clinic for poor terminally ill that no one wants (especially AIDS and cancer patients), the Life Aid Center (for women pregnant in need and poor children), the home for teenage mothers, a refectory, elementary, middle and high schools, a retirement home and a clinic.
Who is Father Trento?
But who is Don Aldo Trento? A "poor man", a sinner, a "Job" who lost everything, suffered, kept his faith and commitment and received The "embrace" of mercy of God. So he described this himself Belluno priest of Communion and Liberation, in Paraguay since 1989. A people to whom he has given himself body and soul, that of the poor and suffering of the Guaranì country. So much to receive from the Parliament the Paraguayan citizenship for merits towards the homeland. A homeland that was not his own, in the midst of which he landed thanks to Don Luigi Giussani, that for Don Aldo was God's instrument to redeem him from darkness. But let's go in order.
The vocation
At the age of 7, he says, he felt a vocation to the priesthood. It was after seeing the movie Molokai, on the life of San Damiano di Molokai, who spent himself for the lepers of the island of the same name in Hawaii and whom he felt the desire to imitate. However, he turned a deaf ear for a few years. Until one day, at the age of 11, he simply said to his mother: “Mom, on the eve of Saint Joseph I went to confession, and the priest asked me if I wanted to be a missionary priest. I told him yes". A few months later, it reached the seminarians Canossians in the mountains. He never came back.
He was ordained a priest in the mythical 70s, and that "ideological drunkenness that had ruined many brains", he confesses, also ruined his own. Then, the crisis worsened with a strong, reciprocated falling in love with a woman of great faith. He resisted: he wanted to save his vocation.
The turning point
He got one severe depression, which felt it for years. And he turned to Fr Giussani, whom he had met some time before. When he told him he was in love, “How beautiful! You will finally become a man! ”, The founder of Communion and Liberation replied on the spot. AND sent it to Paraguay.
Over time he sublimated that love in charity towards the poor. As he recounts in an interview, the support of the parish priest of the parish to whom he was sent (San Rafael, who gave his name to foundation who administers his social works), Alberto Bertaccini from Forlì.
Don Aldo immediately wanted to know in depth the history of the country that hosted him. A personality like his could not remain indifferent to the capital experience of the Jesuit Reductions. It was a shock, and the example of social harmony of the "earthly paradise" that Jesuits and Indians had given life to in these lands always guided it as a destination.
The works of Father Trento
Thus the works were born, one after the other, as if by a miracle. “Seeing the good works that Jesus, through Fr Giussani's embrace, did in this place at the end of the world, I cannot help but be moved”, he wrote for the magazine Tempi. “God truly chooses the most ignorant to carry out his plans. If that's not true, how could it be that a poor man could have done such a great and beautiful work? Every day, visiting it, I perceive my littleness and the greatness of divine mercy, and I am convinced that without all that I have suffered, these works might not exist ".
The rule"
Don Aldo has one triple personal rule of life, which guides his actions and that of all those who work or support the charitable works of the San Rafael Foundation as volunteers: “First: 'calluses on the knees' from so much praying and recognizing that pain has a purpose. Second: 'corns on the head'. That is, to see reality, not to let oneself be led by one's thoughts, because the depressed person does not see reality but is dominated by his thoughts. And thirdly: 'calluses in the hands': to write, to work with your hands, to do… ”.
It is the wisdom born of pain. From which Don Aldo also learned empathy with those who suffer.
To this day this small and tough Belluno man has accompanied at least 1.600 people to cross the "last path". To die in peace with God and with oneself. Not to mention how many he fed, how many would not even have been born without him and his host of volunteers. He's a bit bruised now. But Covid hasn't brought it down. And, even if his works will remain very solid, many hope that "el Padre Trento" will still live a long time among them.
