Funeral of Enzo Bianchi in Castel Boglione: farewell to the founder of the Bose Community

Castel Boglione in the Asti area, birthplace of Enzo Bianchi, celebrated today in a hot and crowded parish church the funeral of the founder of the monastic community of Bose, who died in Turin on 1 September at the age of 83.

Among the many who arrived in the small town of not even 600 inhabitants to whom Enzo Bianchi was deeply attached, also the former mayor of Turin Valentino Castellani. "With Enzo - he said - I shared a peasant childhood, and I believe that his roots built the great person he was. I had met him as a boy - he explained - but then we completely lost touch. When I became mayor I went to visit him in Bose and from then on we began to meet him very assiduously and a friendship was born: he was my teacher in many things".

Even the bishop of Vercelli, Marco Arnolfo, remembers Enzo Bianchi from his youth. "I have always had a particular relationship with the community of Bose - he underlined - and I even went there a few days before my episcopal ordination. Vercelli has always had a close relationship with Bose: it was a priest from Vercelli, Don Cesare Massa, who indicated to Brother Enzo the place where his beautiful ecumenical community had then arisen, which was truly an example of brotherhood and openness to the world".

A large community of people of all ages paid their final farewell to the biblical expert monk, founder of Edizioni Qiqajon, prior of Bose until 2017. In church, in the heart of the Asti Langa, many hugs and even tears.

Enzo Bianchi was born in 1943 and in recent years he had gradually retired from the business also due to health problems. It was a spiritual point of reference for entire generations.