LA CITTA’ DEI RAGAZZI

(The boys’ town)

After a long project, based on the multiculturality and the book “La città dei ragazzi”, in November 2011 we finally visited this community. Eraldo Affinati, the writer of the book, received us and accompanied us to visit it…

“La città dei ragazzi” is a community situated in the western outskirts of Rome.

It provides assistance, education and social work for the boys without a good family support and vulnerable to deviance.

Monsignor John Patrick Carroll-Abbing was the founder of the “Città dei ragazzi”.

He was born at Oldham, near Manchester, in 1912. At the age of 18, he decided to start his priesthood studies.

That’s how the “Città dei ragazzi” was born…

…right after the war, in the country there were millions of refugees in need of everything. Monsignor Carroll-Abbing started to organize places where the poor could eat, receive sanitary assistance and free medicines. He organized also temporary centres of welcome for youngsters without a family. In a cellar near the Termini Station he started to equip a place for the street boys.Monsignor fell ill with a severe form of pneumonia; during the illness he had the dream that showed him the future “Città dei ragazzi”.

“…in Boys’ Town there had to be a key capable of opening the sanctuaries of the heart where all the tender memories of yesterday had been hidden , the memories of things so deeply anchored in the fibers, that only remembering them causes pain and suffering. These precious memories had to be freed once again by the magic force of love so that they could no longer hurt, but could once again gain the ancient power to console and encourage.Trust and love; the two great forces on which to build a city, not only meant as a group of buildings made of stone, but as a community of free, responsible citizens who would live together like brothers under the paternal protection of God.”

quote M. Carroll Abbing