Death of Father Vincenzo Cosenza, C.R.
While on this Sunday, in our communities and in our temples, the triumphant and eternal royalty of Our Lord Jesus Christ is acclaimed, tears fill our theatine hearts because our dear brother, Fr Vincenzo Cosenza, has left for the House of the heavenly Father, CR
For some time – we received the official communication on November 5, 2020 – Father Vincenzo was hospitalized, with a complex clinical picture. The determining and triggering factor for this condition had been, fundamentally, COVID-19, together with other underlying pathologies.
Truly, the news of his death reaches us like that thief in the night we wish we would never find. We know that our theatine brother has a suitcase full of faith, hope and charity, and the lamp of good works with enough oil to enter the thalamus of the Lord of Life and History. We trust that, in the infinite mercy of our good God, so be it.
Father Vincenzo [Paolo Maria] Cosenza, C.R.
(26.01.1940 – 22.11.2020)
Father Vincenzo – who in his theatine religious profession had added the names of Paolo Maria – was born in Caloveto, Province of Cosenza, in Magna Calabria, a region of southern Italy, on January 26, 1940.
He made his first theatine religious profession on September 14, 1960 and received priestly ordination on October 16, 1968.
A beloved brother, endowed with an unshakable humanity and a formidable greatness of spirit, he knew how to combine in his life the capacity for community leadership, literary sensitivity and pastoral charity. Trained at the Pontifical Gregorian University and at the Libera Università Maria Ssma. Assunta, both in Rome, cultivated theology and pedagogy with a fiery spirit, always ready to touch the heart and awaken the sense of faith – which could be prolonged as a vocational reflection, both Christian and religious – in whoever he met on his path. He also knew how to take on the missionary task, staying for four years in Holland.
Various texts have been gathered from his pen that populate the theatine publishing universe, such as Io, Gaetano Thiene, prete, Vincenza, ISG, 1992; Lancillotto Avellino, Cinisiello Balsamo (MI), San Paolo, 2006; I nostri voli mancati, Rossano, Grafosud, 2012, and Diario di un viandante, Roma, Mancini, 2018.
