Calderoli, cancer and an ordeal lasting eight interventions – Corriere.it

The shot went around the web and the political world. Roberto Calderoli alongside Luca Zaia intent on working together. The place, however, is unusual: it is the room of a hospital, precisely of the Veneto Oncological Institute of Padua where he is hospitalized for one of the periodic checks he has to undergo due to the disease that has accompanied him since 2012. Cancer has changed my life .. «The disease has given me so much. I recovered my faith, I rediscovered God with whom I have a daily dialogue. I’ll call him you, ”he confessed only a few months ago in an interview with Cesare Zapperi for Sette.

The rediscovered faith: “I went to mass only on Sundays while Christmas, for example, was just an occasion for family celebration and the exchange of gifts”, before the encounter with the disease. And the turning point: «I go to mass on Sundays but also two or three times during the week. And every morning I dedicate at least half an hour to prayer ».

An ordeal lasting eight interventions, marked not only by faith, but also by all the strength and fragility that accompanies a man. “When you enter the operating room for certain operations you are called to deal with your life,” he confessed. The discovery was traumatic: “I was convinced I had appendicitis, I found myself with a tumor.” The recurring fears. Like when, in 2019, he said, “This time I had the feeling of not making it.” ? “I consider myself lucky. Especially when I find myself in the hospital and see the empty beds of those who until a few hours before were there to fight the disease like me ».

The tumor also led him to collide also on ethical issues, especially those related to Covid. At the time of the debate on the mandatory vaccine, just a year ago, he said: “First you have to make every effort to convince. Out of seven against the vaccines I have been confronted with, I have managed to convert five of them. If we let go of the excommunications and try, each of us, to convince someone, the percentage of no vax can be reduced ». He teased: “If you don’t want the green pass, we’ll give you the black pass.”

Except then confess: “One of the two people I failed with is a relative of mine. I argued with him for hours and hours, I spent the night and then I was forced to send him to that country ». How did it end?: «I took him away, he doesn’t even have to try to call me. Whoever calls himself out of collective responsibility must be put on the sidelines ».