Canobbio - Tuesday, July 8, 2025, in Cannobio, His Excellency Most Reverend Monsignor Franco Giulio Brambilla presided over the Funeral Mass of Reverend Father Matteo Balzano, a priest of the Diocese of Novara who tragically ended his life on July 5. On this sorrowful event, Silere non possum has offered some initial reflections and will continue to do so in the coming days, so that such tragedies may not be repeated and the cry of many priests may no longer go unheard.
“What does the death of Don Matteo say to all of us?”
This is the first question the Bishop addressed — to himself, to the priests, to those who live alongside clergy in the often silent and burdensome daily life of parishes. A tentative answer, he sought in the Liturgy of the Word proposed by the Ambrosian Rite, where Jesus instructs the disciples to follow “a man carrying a jar of water” to find the room of the Last Supper.
That anonymous gesture — following the one who carries a water jar — becomes a key to understanding the priestly ministry as a Paschal passage: “Pascha,” Brambilla recalled, means passage, and the priest is called to pass through pain, weariness, and loneliness while remaining close to the Lord. But to do so, one must not hide. One must learn to listen — to oneself and to others — and build authentic, fraternal relationships capable of embracing fragility, fatigue, and questions. “We must learn,” he said, “to find in our fraternal relationships the language and words of welcome and communion.”
“What does this death say to young people?”
This is the second question. Last Sunday, the Bishop met with the youth group from the Cannobio oratory. He found them shaken, devastated, deeply affected. Their words, he said, “echoed, in a way, those of Jesus on the cross: ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’” During that encounter, he invited them to write, to give voice to what they were experiencing. During the funeral, a young woman — Alessia — read a text composed by the entire group. Simple words, yet rich in meaning:
“Dear Fr. Matteo, you were more than just our ‘don’, more than our confessor and more than our guide. You were a true friend to us. […] Our relationship with you hasn’t ended. It has only changed. Because we know that you will always be with us.”
“What does this death say to our families, to our city?”
This is the third and final question. The Bishop addressed it to the entire civil and ecclesial community, touched by a loss that did not remain confined to the “practicing” faithful. The face of Don Matteo, his style, his presence left a mark that reached even those at the margins of Church life. “It tells us of the importance and urgency of placing care for the soul back at the center. […] Too often we are distracted by superficial priorities, and we forget what truly matters.”
The shared sorrow and affection expressed in these days — Monsignor Brambilla emphasized — could become a point of new beginning. But only if we know how to carry this trauma not as a fleeting emotional moment, but as a lasting provocation.
At the end of the homily, the Bishop read the only words — he said — he had been able to write in these days. He wrote them after his meeting with the young people of the oratory. Three brief verses, essential and raw, that condense a still-open wound:
“Sweet brother
young broken orphans
infinite weeping.”
“I do not know when my heart will stop weeping,” he concluded. “But surely, like these young people, I will not forget Don Matteo.”
d.S.B.
Silere non possum