Exactly fifty years ago, il 22 July 1968, Giovanni Guareschi died, writer, journalist, screenwriter, political polemicist, agricultural entrepreneur and much more. I can't help but remember him for the warmth he was able to instill in our hearts with his stories that talk about places, Emilia, and of an era, after the Second World War, who are still very close to us. This climate also allows us to revisit the periodic re-showing of films on TV Don Camillo, on whom Guareschi wrote this curious reflection «Gino Cervi corresponds exactly to my Peppone. Fernandel doesn't have the slightest resemblance to my Don Camillo. But he's so good that he stole the job from my priest. So now, when I venture into some new Don Camillo story, I find myself in serious difficulty because I have to employ a priest who has the face of Fernandel.»

Baldassarre Molossi wrote, in the Gazzetta di Parma" of 25 July 1968: “Giovannino Guareschi is the most read Italian writer in the world with translations into all languages ​​and staggering circulation figures. But official Italy ignored him. Many of our current rulers owe something to Guareschi and his strenuous battle of 1948 if today they still sit in ministerial chairs, but none of them moved. None of them showed up (…). Even Giovannino Guareschi now rests in the gentleman's cemetery. It is an uncrowded place. We understood it yesterday, while we counted old friends from our youth and some journalists among us, on the fingers of both hands.”

A human story, that of Giovanni Guareschi, complicated by two prisons, the first among 1943 and the 1945 in the camps of Nazi Germany, beautifully narrated in clandestine diary, and the second in the San Francesco prison in Parma, for defamation against Alcide De Gasperi (entered it 26 maggio 1954 to get out of it 4 July '55). For the rest, I refer you to the biography full of images edited by her children Alberto and Carlotta, that you find Who and in which the experience of an agricultural entrepreneur who did not have the developments he desired is also mentioned.
I conclude by pointing out the beautiful memory of Guareschi written for Alleanza Quotidiano by Dario Mazzocchi (Who) and reporting this dialogue between Don Camillo and Our Lord, always very topical:
“Gentleman, what is this wind of madness? Isn't it that the circle is about to close and the world is racing towards its rapid self-destruction?”
“Don Camillo, why so much pessimism? Then my sacrifice would have been useless? My mission among men would therefore have failed because the wickedness of men is stronger than the goodness of God?”
“No, Gentleman. I only meant to say that today people only believe in what they see and touch. But there are essential things that cannot be seen or touched: amore, goodness, compassion, honesty, modesty, hope. And faith. Things you can't live without. This is the self-destruction I was talking about. The man, I think, he is destroying his entire spiritual heritage. The only true wealth that, over thousands of centuries, had accumulated. One day soon he will find himself exactly like the cave brute. The caves will be tall skyscrapers filled with wonderful machines, but the spirit of man will be that of the cave brute. Gentleman: people fear terrifying weapons that disintegrate men and things. But I believe that only they will be able to give man his wealth back. Because they will destroy everything and man, freed from the slavery of earthly goods he will seek God again. And he will find it again and rebuild the spiritual heritage that today he is finishing destroying. Gentleman, if this is what will happen, what can we do?”

Christ smiled.

“What the farmer does when the river overflows its banks and invades the fields: we need to save the seed. When the river has returned to its bed, the earth will re-emerge and the sun will dry it. If the farmer has saved the seed, he will be able to throw it on the land made even more fertile by the silt of the river, and the seed will bear fruit, and the turgid and golden ears will give men bread, life and hope. We need to save the seed: faith. Don Camillo, we need to help those who still have faith to keep it intact. The spiritual desert extends more and more every day; every day new souls dry up because they are abandoned by the faith. Every day more men of many words and no faith destroy the spiritual heritage and faith of others. Men of every race, of every extraction, of every culture.”