GIULIANO MELOTTO (priest)
Born: Bevilacqua Verona – 10.31.1943
Temporary profession: 09.25.1961
Perpetual profession: 11.1.1964
Ordination: 06.22.1969
Death: San Daniele del Friuli, 09.12.2023
Age: 79
On September 12th, around 10:15 pm, Giuliano Melotto was called to the Father's home.
For a few weeks, he had been hospitalized at the San Daniele del Friuli Hospital, due to a sudden drop in blood pressure. After hospitalization, the situation became complicated. Fr. Giuliano had already had several situations of physical fragility, including the amputation of a leg in 2017. But he had always taken courage, that courage which had pushed him as a young theology student to Africa, to complete his studies and being ordained a priest in 1969 in Pretoria.
For years his commitment has been extensive in the Winterveld, among the communities of Maboloka, Kiplgat, Jericho, Ten Morgen and many others. It was he who welcomed the first groups of lay volunteers from Cerro for the construction of various churches, kindergartens, centers for the elderly, clinics where people came for free treatment. We were in the Seventies and Eighties and this collaboration lasted for a very long time, also consolidated by the numerous meetings that Fr. Giuliano attended during his holidays to the parish community of Cerro, to which he felt deeply attached throughout his life.
After 25 years of presence in South Africa, in 1993 he emigrated to Botswana, where his work was needed in some villages near Gaborone, for four years. He was then called to Msolwa, Tanzania, where he spent the last years in Africa, from 1996 to 2003, as a missionary committing himself to carrying forward the many social promotion projects started in that land by the missionary fathers who had preceded him.
Having returned to Italy for health reasons, he made part of the communities of Poggiomarino, Naples for two years; Foligno-Vescia for five years, until 2012; and finally Gemona, always accompanied by his missionary vivacity which marked him for the rest of his life.
We thank the Lord for having given us such a generous and helpful brother, and we entrust him to His light, so that he may continue his presence among us in spirit.
The funeral will be held in Tricesimo, Udine, at the Sanctuary of the Missionary Madonna on Monday, September 18, 2023 at 10.00 am, and then at the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Lourdes in Verona at 3.30 pm.
The body will be buried in the tomb of the Stigmatines in Verona.
Fr. Lidio Zaupa
