Thank You, Father Don Carlo

Recently, there has been much talk about the Don Gnocchi Foundation, but what was the priest from Lodi really trying to accomplish? To refresh our memory, we turn to the book *Thank You, Father Don Carlo*, in which the boys and girls of that era reconstruct his commitment to children in distress—children orphaned by war, those with multiple limb defects, children struck by polio, those born without limbs. In an age when disability was felt as a curse, Gnocchi supported these children physically, intellectually, and socially, making them citizens capable of living not on the charity of others, but through their own abilities. For Don Gnocchi, rehabilitation and recovery meant something more: he insisted that society itself do something for these children, recognizing their rights. He was convinced that disability, to be truly helped, needed qualified personnel equal to the task. Today, by contrast, those who work with disabled people are still (for the most part) those who could not find better work elsewhere.