"My life has become a nightmare. I can't live anymore, I'm scared. They created a team of priests to delete the things she wrote on Facebook."
The 55-year-old priest, who had been stalked for years by a 72-year-old parishioner who followed him from Padua to Bologna and Genoa, testified in tears before the judge. The woman is accused of stalking and the Archbishop of Genoa Marco Tasca was also heard at today's hearing.
The deacon victim of persecution recounted in detail what he has been suffering for years: "I was forced to hide. I couldn't stand all this, a thousand calls on the convent phone. I was forced to change my phone number. He created fake Facebook profiles where he wrote that I had abused women and children as if they were my statements."
To help him in the convent of San Francesco di Albaro, where the woman followed him after the transfer in 2021, they had also installed a machine that blocked calls. "But every time she changes her number and starts again. I was scared, my life was in danger because they could kick me out of the order." The parish priest was previously a cheerful man. "Now everything has stopped, I no longer trust people. I can't go out, I can't get in touch with people. I felt guilty because in every convent I went to there were misfortunes, it was as if I carried them with me. I started to feel sick, to have anxiety attacks. My throat would get blocked and they would give me cortisone injections. What will be his next step given that even though he was forbidden to come near me he followed me everywhere I went? In 2016 he told me he would destroy me."
Archbishop Tasca testified at the hearing. "I heard the phone ringing at night and in the morning they explained to me that it was this woman. I see our brother extremely tried, he feels responsible because this whole affair involves our community."
The parishioner has already been convicted in Bologna for stalking and slander as well as for violating the restraining order. The next hearing is scheduled for February 17.
