Cesare Catania

Vincent Degaetano writes:

When the news spread around, by e-mail and phone, early on Friday afternoon that Cesare Catania had passed away, his many friends were dumbstruck.

After reading philosophy, Italian and history of the Mediterranean at the Royal University of Malta, Cesare proceeded to the Universita` Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan from where he graduated in political sciences. He decided to remain in Milan, where he taught English.

God’s greatest gift to Cesare was his ability not just to make friends but to establish lasting and deep friendships. Physical distances were no obstacle. When he was still living in Milan – and he lived there from the mid-70s right up to a few years ago when he decided to retire in Malta – we would generally meet only in the few weeks when he was on holiday on the island, often accompanied by scores of his students; yet he would, with consummate ease, continue a conversation which we had started the previous summer as if it were something we had been discussing just a couple of days before. An incurable romantic, yet at the same time very sensitive and alert to all that was happening around him and around those he loved, he would share his thoughts and emotions in lengthy and at times animated discussions with his close friends on topics ranging from love to literature, politics to history, and – one of his favourite topics of conversation – life in his hometown of Ħamrun in his pre-university days.

Cesare Catania often recited some recently drafted poem, or left a printed version behind him, whenever he visited. He was one of those for whom time has less relevance to humanity than beauty and poetry.

He would, without the slightest hesitation, reach out to anyone he thought needed help, even people he hardly knew, as, I am sure, many former patients at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan can attest. His close friends – and my wife and I had the privilege of being among his close friends – he considered as part of his family. Every time we met, and, in more recent years, every time we corresponded by e-mail or chatted online, he would enquire about our children and about our parents as if they were his children and his parents. The other day a mutual friend, whose father died nine years ago, recalled how Cesare had joined him at his father’s bedside, “his mind undoubtedly etching in literary terms all the feelings and emotions at such sad yet peaceful and serene moments”. Cesare later wrote to him: “You have no idea how often I pray that I too can have the serenity and interior moral force to overcome difficulties.”

To his father and his sisters go the condolences and prayers of Cesare’s many friends, in the firm conviction that he now rests serene in the arms of the Lord.