The poet, the mystic, and her cat Adriana Zarri

The poet, the mystic, and her cat

 
          Leonardo Boff -  Theologian -     Earthcharter Commission

All through her history, the Italian Catholic Church has shown a major contradiction. On the one hand there is the strong presence of the Vatican, representing the official Church with her masses of the faithful, kept under strict social control by her doctrines, and especially by the family and sexual morals. On the other hand, there are Christians, lay men and women, non-aligned, who resist the monarchic and implacable power of the bureaucracy of the Roman curia, but are open to the Gospel and Christian values; and who do not break from the papacy, even though they criticize its practices and the support it gives to conservative and even authoritarian regimes.
Thus we have in the XIX century the figure of Antonio Rosmini, a fine philosopher and critic of the anti-modernism of the Popes. In recent times we see figures such as Mazzolari, Raniero La Valle, Arturo Paoli, the hermit Maria Campello.  One who stands out is Adriana Zarri, a hermit, theologian, poet and eminent writer. Besides authoring several books, she wrote weekly in the daily, Il Manifesto, and fortnightly in Rocca, the cultural magazine.
She was very harsh with respect to the actual course of the Church under the popes Wojtyla and Ratzinger, whom she explicitly accused of betraying the reform efforts approved by Vatican Council II (1962-1965), and of returning to medieval models of exercising power, and of the role of the Church in society. Adriana Zarri died on November 18, 2010, when she was over 90 years old.
I visited her a few times in her hermitage near Strambino, in North Italy. She lived alone with her beloved cat, Archibalda, in a huge and very old house, filled with roses. She had a chapel with the exposed Holy Eucharist where she would retire in prayer and profound meditation for several hours a day.
When we conversed, she wanted to know everything about the Christian base communities, about the commitment of the Church to the causes of the poor, Blacks, and Indigenous peoples. She had a special affection for the theologians of liberation, in light of the persecution they suffered at the hands of the Vatican authorities, who treated them, according to her, «with blows with sticks», while they used silk gloves when dealing with the followers of the schismatic Monsignor Lefebvre.
She dedicated her last article, published three days before her death, to her beloved Archibalda.  As I personally witnessed, she had an affectionate relationship with her, as intimate friends. That which our great Jungian psychoanalyst Nise da Silveira described in her book, Cats, the bonds of living together, was confimed by Zarri: «the cat has the capacity of capturing our moods; if she sees me crying, she immediately comes to lick my tears.»  We are told that the cat stayed close to her as she was dying.  When friends arrived for the wake, she would nervously roll up in the living room curtain.  Just before they closed the casket, as if she knew it was time, Archibalda discreetly entered the chapel.
Someone, knowing the cat's love for Adriana Zarri, lifted her by the scruff of the neck, and held her close to the face of the deceased. Archibalda looked at her for a very long time, she seemed to be weeping. Then she slipped under the casket, and remained there in absolute stillness.
This made me think of our cat, Blanquita. She looks like a fragile and elegant girl. She is so attached to my compañera, Marcia, that she follows her all the time and sleeps at her feet, especially when my compañera is upset for some reason. Blanquita captures her mood, and tries to console her, by rubbing her body against hers, purring softly.
Adriana Zarri left a writing for her epitaph that is worth reproducing: «Do not dress me up in black: that is sad and funereal. Neither in white, because it is arrogant and affected. Dress me up with yellow and red flowers and the wings of little birds. And You, Lord, look at my hands. Perhaps they have put there a rosary, or a cross. But they made a mistake. In my hands I have green leaves and over the cross,Your resurrection. Do not put cold marble on my grave, with the usual lies to console the living. Let the Earth write an epitaph of herbs, in the Spring. There it will be said that I lived and that I wait. Then, Lord, You will write Your name and mine, as united as two petals of a poppy.»
 Adriana Zarri, the writer and mystic of the open eyes, showed us how to live and die beautifully and sweetly.
 
Leonardo Boff
03-04-2011