Kenneth Orom: "Africa is the Catholic reserve of the world today". "At 14, I ran away from God. At 21, he found me again."Filippo Pellini has a degree in theology from the University of Rome. Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, in Rome.
He belongs to the Priestly Fraternity of the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo, a society of apostolic life founded in 1985 by Bishop Massimo Camisasca, now bishop of Reggio Emilia, together with other priests who wished to live their ministry following the charism of Communion and Liberation.
He was born and raised in Milan, in a family that was not particularly religious, but which encouraged him to study catechism and gave him the opportunity to receive the sacraments of Christian initiation. "However, like so many young people, after receiving confirmation, without any great existential dramas, I simply stopped attending the parish. I was 12 years old at the time and had nothing against God or the Church," he says.
He lived for some years with "his foot in two shoes", internally torn between two opposing visions of the world and of life. He began attending the faculty of design at Bovisa, the seat of the Politecnico di Milano, a very prestigious university. There I decided to follow the company of friends who brought me closer to God and to the universal Church.
"Antonio, a priest of the Fraternity of St. Carlo, was the chaplain of Bovisa during my last years of university. My meeting with him was an encounter with a father who knew how to accompany me in the labyrinth of affections, events and desires that from time to time took up space in my heart," Filippo recounts.
All these elements made me, a few days after obtaining my degree, go to D. Antonio to ask him the vocational question that I could no longer avoid: "What if the path by which the Lord is calling me was the priesthood?"
They decided to take some time to verify this hypothesis. "I started working as a graphic designer, working in an editorial office and as an assistant at the Polytechnic. However, all this was not enough. None of this made me happier than when I was announcing and witnessing to the newness of Christ. I did not understand why the Lord was asking me to take this big step, but I realized that if I had not taken it, I would have lost the most beautiful things that filled my life".
"After more than five years of life in the Fraternity and having reached the threshold of ordination, looking back, I can only be grateful for the adventure to which God has called me, full of kind faces and trials to face", he concludes.
