Pope recalls 1963 landslide in Italy: 'You've witnessed resurrection'

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

"For you, I imagine it happened that your incalculable and unspeakable pain slowly thawed like an enormous sheet of ice in your hearts, thanks to the warmth of your togetherness, the closeness of many, and the help of God, thereby irrigating society in turn."

With these words, Pope Francis expressed his sympathy to those who faced great sorrow for the 2,000 lives lost from the 1963 Landslide of Vajont Dam in northern Italy, as he received a delegation from the Italian Diocese of Belluno-Feltre on Friday, marking the 60-year anniversary of the tragedy.

"You bring to Rome, to the tomb of the Apostle Peter, a heavy burden of memory and suffering," the Holy Father acknowledged.

The Pope expressed his closeness to them, thanked them for their ability to start anew, and called them "a wave of hope."

Witnessing resurrection and starting again

"If sixty years ago, exactly on 9 October 1963, a catastrophic wave swept away entire villages and hamlets, claiming 1910 lives," the Pope observed, "you are a wave of life."

"For you responded to that wave of annihilation and destruction with the courage of memory and reconstruction," he noted. "I think of all the silent drops that formed this great wave of good: the rescuers, the rebuilders, the many who did not let themselves be imprisoned by grief, but knew how to start again."

"You are builders, and you are witnesses to these seeds of resurrection, which may not make much headlines but are precious in the eyes of God, the 'specialist in restarting,' He who from a tomb of death has started an eternal story of new life."

Despite their immense sorrow, the Holy Father noted, "you did so much good without many words, but with great commitment and concreteness, rolling up your sleeves; thus, you carefully rebuilt where neglect had caused destruction."

Greed-driven disasters

Reflecting on the Vajont disaster, the Pope said, several questions have been raised: "What caused the tragedy was not mistakes in the design or construction of the dam, but the very fact of wanting to build a reservoir in the wrong place. And why?"

"Ultimately," he responded, "for putting the logic of profit before care for humanity and the environment in which we live."

Lamenting this reality, the Pope appealed for proper care of Creation.

Pope Francis receives delegation from Dioceses of Belluno-Feltre

"I never tire of repeating that caring for Creation is not simply an ecological factor, but an anthropological issue: it has to do with human life, as the Creator conceived and arranged it, and it concerns the future of everyone and the global society in which we are immersed."

The Holy Father also recalled that 2024 marks the eighth centenary of the composition of the Canticle of Creatures by St. Francis, Patron Saint of Italy, in which the Saint of Assisi praises the Lord for the blessing of "useful" and "humble" water.

Water's power, for good or for bad

"Useful and humble," water is, the Pope reaffirmed, but "tremendous and destructive," he also recognized, "in the case of Vajont," or "inaccessible to so many in the world today who suffer thirst or have no drinkable water."

With this in mind, he urged the faithful to adopt the respectful gaze of Saint Francis, "to recognise the beauty of creation," stop devastating the environment, and "to collaborate fraternally in the development of life."

"You do this," Pope Francis said, "by preserving the memory and bearing witness to how life can rise again precisely there, where everything had been swallowed up by death."