A few months ago, Armando seemed to be dying once again. Uncertain what was best for him, Marco, his guardian, decided to ask Jean. Jean had no doubts: Marco must measure Armando's life not by his own standards, but by Armando's. For Armando, even a few more hours among his community could hold profound meaning. Armando still lives at Il Chicco, which has welcomed him for 33 years now — he is 38 years old.
Armando is one of 20 people with severe mental and physical disabilities cared for at L'Arca's community in Ciampino, Il Chicco, where Marco Veronesi is the director. And Jean is Jean Vanier, who 55 years ago first bore witness to something remarkable: that it was possible to restore a life of dignity and richness to those whom society had cast to the margins, often warehoused in psychiatric institutions even without psychiatric illness. Through a simple, everyday way of living, Jean inspired many to share in that vision. People around the world found themselves questioned by his idea and transformed their lives to realize concretely what lies at the heart of L'Arca's approach — a place where each person recognizes their own fragility and offers their gifts, honoring every difference. Jean used to say he had founded nothing. He had simply opened the doors of his home, along with Raphael and Philippe, to share and bear witness.
In Italy, Il Chicco was planted on December 11, 1981. Fabio and Maria — two children from a Roman orphanage — formed the first household with Guenda Malvezzi and Anne Da, who would care for them. Fabio and Maria, then Lucia, Armando, Giorgio, Salvatore, Danilo, Sara, Dafne — they are still there, now grown into men and women who, despite their severe difficulties, have created a new way of living together. All were present last Thursday, May 16, gathered with their community — Armando in his room, receiving intensive care — to follow the funeral Mass of Jean, streamed from France. After the war and his studies in philosophy, Jean had chosen to follow Jesus among the poorest.
Over the years, Il Chicco developed a workshop called Il Nido, serving both those who live there permanently and others who attend as a day center. The community then expanded its capacity with two new homes, La Vigna and La Spiga — small family-style households, each tailored to the needs of those who live there. Today there are three residential homes and a day center welcoming 30 young people and about 50 staff and volunteers combined.
Anyone who enters Il Chicco feels it immediately: the atmosphere is one of genuine family warmth. This is the kind of project that tests the humanity of our societies — increasingly obsessed with efficiency, cost-cutting, and savings, even at the cost of the most vulnerable lives. In the beginning, bureaucratic obstacles were less onerous than they are now. Like many other communities trying to do good work tailored to each person, Il Chicco faces grave difficulties today. So grave that at one point they had to close one of their residential units, consolidating residents into a single home. The situation has improved somewhat, but the challenges remain serious.
Every city would benefit from communities like this — a kind of living prophecy, an antidote and immune response to so many of our era's afflictions. A true "hidden treasure in the field" (Mt 13:44). While many welcome centers, despite their importance, remain largely closed off from the wider world, here the opposite is true. Il Chicco hosts gatherings for other community groups and lends one of its spaces as a theater. There is no shortage of occasions to celebrate, to pray, to mark milestones — and to lend a hand. It is a structure well-balanced within its environment: the right size to be both efficient and effective, respectful of human dignity. But it is certainly not "economical" by current standards, despite the dedication of those who run it.
Now the 154 L'Arca communities in 38 countries will live through a time of grief, orphaned as if by the loss of a father, yet inheritors of a precious legacy: the awareness of God's tenderness toward each of us, of the beauty present in every human being, beyond all appearances. It falls to each of us to stand near them and care for them. That light burning in Armando's room — that fragile, stubborn flame that is his precious and singular life, a life he did not choose but that God loves deeply — it questions us, warms us, and shines in the hearts of all of us. To care for it is to care for the hidden, small, precious places deep within each of our own hearts — places so often imprisoned by the tyranny of normalcy, as Jean called it, held captive by fear that we will not be accepted and loved as we truly are.