In Casal di Principe, once a stronghold of the Casalesi, everyone was waiting for him.
The mayor who transformed the face of the city, the families of the victims, the boys, tired of continuing to hear the name of their land associated with the Camorra and who thank the President of the Republic because his visit today is an "encouragement to continue on the path of redemption, which we have been on for years now".
Sergio Mattarella will be in Casal di Principe to pay homage to the figure of
Don Peppe Diana, the priest killed by the Casalesi clan on 19 March 29 years ago
, on the symbolic places of memory linked to the priest: from the tomb in which he is buried to the church in which he was killed shortly before celebrating mass, to the school, which Don Diana considered essential to get the boys off the street and keep them away from organized crime.
On the first day of spring when all the innocent victims of organized crime are commemorated, Mattarella's visit will be brief but "full of profound meaning.
There is enormous pride because we know the price that Casal di Principe has paid in the past and the sacrifice made to try to change things, and today the situation is very different, the Camorra is no longer in charge", says excited Renato Natale, mayor of Casal di Principe whose parable is intertwined with that of Don Diana. Natale was mayor when the priest was killed, but he was disliked by the clan which then decided first citizens, councilors and assessors, so he was sent home by his own majority and the Camorra he made him find manure in front of his house.He then returned to lead the Municipality in 2014, protagonist of the civil rebirth of Casal di Principe, and today he is in his second term.
However, today is also the day of the innocent victims of the Camorra.
Don Diana's family members, together with the eyewitness of the crime Augusto Di Meo, will meet Mattarella at Don Peppe's tomb, in what will be the first stage of the visit (10.30 am), and in which two dramatic experiences such as that of Don Diana and the head of state himself, who lost his brother Piersanti in 1980 at the hands of the Cosa Nostra.
Among Don Diana's family members there is also Iole, the priest's nephew, one of the founders of the Casal di Principe I scout group, created a few months ago in the footsteps of Don Peppe - who was a scout - and who yesterday celebrated the promise of the leaders .
"Despite being born in 1995 - says Iole - Uncle Peppe deeply marked my life, my family and Casal di Principe with her courage,
From the cemetery, Mattarella will move (at 10.50) to the nearby Guido Carli Technical Institute for the only public event of the visit;
here you will meet the students of Carli and of the comprehensive schools of Casale "Spirito Santo" and "Don Diana".
The latter wrote a letter to Mattarella, calling him "you" and thanking him "as we do with our grandparents, to whom we are bound by feelings of love and infinite gratitude".
At Carli there will be Renato Natale with councilors and assessors, the president of the Region Vincenzo De Luca, that of the Province of Caserta Giorgio Magliocca, the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Giovanni Melillo and the prefect Giuseppe Castaldo, the families of five innocent victims of the Camorra, in particular the relatives of the three awarded with the gold medal for civil valor, namely Domenico Noviello, Federico Del Prete and Salvatore Nuvoletta, and those of Antonio Petito and Antonio Di Bona.
