«The parish youth center was struggling in early-seventies Milan, so our priest decided to start a scout troop: I threw myself into it completely.» This is Father Marco Bove speaking—the bedrock of Faith and Light. He has been national spiritual assistant since 1999, and since September 2019 has served as the movement's international spiritual assistant. But his truest achievement is this: he has made his own the spirit of a community built on friendship.
What was Marco like as a boy?
I was in scouts at fifteen when someone told us there was a family that needed volunteers to do physical therapy with a disabled girl. Four of us stepped forward—that was my first encounter with disability, through Dr. Doman's stimulation program! I got to know Lucrezia that way; everyone called her Teta. For years I spent time at her house. When I got to university, her mother asked if I'd like to be a teaching assistant for her daughter. (Back then, university enrollment was the only requirement.) I said no, but the next year she asked again and I gave in. I didn't study much that year, but I began to think about my life. The girl started fourth grade, I kept visiting the family, but I switched to teaching religion at another school—the year I made first contact with the seminary. I left university and went. What happened next was remarkable: the evening I finished my exams for first year, just as I was looking forward to going home, the rector called me. There was a celebration the next day and they needed help. I wanted to say no, but instead I found myself preparing a Faith and Light event. It was June 1983. A revelation.
Struck by the sight of a guitar and a song!
(Laughs.) There were three other seminary students at the party. They explained that this was their commitment for second year—normally you get sent to parishes on Sundays, but the rector had asked them to follow Faith and Light. I liked what I heard and volunteered. In September I started. After my second year of theology I switched seminaries, knowing my involvement with Faith and Light would have to change. But I did everything I could to keep it. Providence had it that when I was ordained a priest in 1987, I was assigned to the parish in Rho where a Faith and Light community had just been born! After nearly nine years there, Martini asked me to oversee the formation of young priests.
We're getting close to your appointment as national assistant…
In 1996 they asked me for the first time, but the cardinal didn't approve. He changed his mind three years later. He told me that forming young priests remained my priority, but I could accept the role. (Besides, Martini was the bishop responsible for Faith and Light in Italy!) I served as national spiritual assistant until the provinces were established, then as assistant for the north. The final transition came with the founding of Faith and Light as a nonprofit association under the Italian Bishops' Conference—so it was the bishops' conference that appointed me ecclesiastical assistant five years ago.
You have a record-breaking career in Faith and Light. Is that because of your talent, or because it's hard to find priests who want the job?
The real problem is that when a priest encounters a Faith and Light community, he feels called to it. But the moment he's transferred, he loses touch. If there's no personal spiritual sensitivity behind the commitment, the moment his assignment ends, so does his link to the movement. Unfortunately, seminary formation on these issues is very thin. That's how big problems arise—like when a priest meets a parent asking for their child to receive the sacraments and refuses. I've been angry so many times. The priest says, «but the boy doesn't understand.» I tell him: «Why? Do you understand the mystery of God?» The truth is that for many priests, disability is hard to handle. Some feel frightened. Most keep their distance because they lack the framework to think about it. I thank God for this experience—it's in my DNA. If I said yes to being president of the Sacra Famiglia (an institute that serves people with disabilities), it's because I had Faith and Light behind me.
What makes us human? The Church, like society, seems so fixated on intelligence…
We risk falling back into a theological-intellectual vision. We're making progress on catechesis, but we still see preparation as schoolroom learning. That mindset doesn't just affect disability—it affects kids from troubled backgrounds who just want to be heard. Even worse: maybe there's an idea that the Church must protect the sacraments. But we have a fundamentally wrong view of them. We see them as a prize for the good, not as help for the fragile. The Eucharist isn't a trophy for achievement—it's bread for the journey for anyone struggling. But that's swimming against the current…
How do your brother priests respond to a path so deeply intertwined with disability?
There's curiosity, but most see it as my specialty—like they have the priest expert in art history or canon law, and then there's me, the disability guy. Obviously I'm glad to be associated with Faith and Light, but I don't like what that implies: that disability is a subject for specialists, when it should be everyone's concern.
Since the late nineties, Faith and Light has changed enormously. What advice would you give it today?
Faith itself is felt less and less—some people wonder if we should even change the name. But there's a crucial difference between people who come as volunteers, treating it as a passing experience without really risking anything, and those who choose to build a real relationship. We need the courage and the capacity to truly live this out. Because actually sharing your life is what works. It speaks louder than any brochure.
What would you say today to fifteen-year-old Marco walking into Lucrezia's house for the first time? And what would that boy say to Father Marco now?
I'd tell him not to be afraid—this experience is going to show him life in a different light. And I think that younger Marco would say to me: Father, be careful not to lose sight of Lucrezia! Do what you need to do, but don't lose the relationship with her!