Mario Borrelli

In 1977, Mario Borrelli, Tonino Drago and Giuliana Martirani founded Italian Peace Research Institute (IPRI), chaired by the same Borrelli until 1988. The institute is affiliated to IPRA, the International Peace Research Association, founded in 1964 by Johan Galtung and which counts with 26 researchers and 250 correspondents distributed in 60 Italian cities. The small institute has the aim to promote initiatives focused on peace research that involve voluntary associations and non-violent peace-inspired movements, a network of people operating in universities and in basic movements for peace. IPRI follows the same path of its international sister institution by promoting research in the field of communal non-violent defence, peace education and non-violent economy and also publishes a bulletin, the IPRI Newsletter. This small institute contributes to some of the major works on peace research published internationally, ranging from economic development to the international division of labour, from the social services for children to peace research and education. Mario Borrelli is also a member of the P.E.C., Peace Education Commission, within the IPRA. Various essays, but especially the experimentation carried out at the Materdei Community Centre, remain as testimony of his experience as a researcher for peace education.

Between 1951 and 1969, Casa dello scugnizzo was not only the physical location providing assistance and support to the street urchins but more importantly it was a network of committees and voluntary groups, distributed throughout Europe and The United States and the fund-raising carried out by the community of Italian, English, American, Canadian, Australian, French, German, Belgian, and Dutch voluntary groups. This way of working enhanced Father Borrelli's reputation and his story was featured in the American magazine Reader's Digest, translated in more than 12 languages, spreads his story around the world. In 1957, Children of the Sun, the biographic novel of Father Borrelli's undertakings written by Morris West, increased his popularity in the Anglophile. In 1958, the film Il bacio del sole (aka Il Bacio del Sole-Don Vesuvio), took inspiration from Mario's venture among the street urchins, and was released at the cinema and distributed throughout Europe. The English broadcasting ITV Television Playhouse produced a biographical television series entitled “Children of the sun”.

In the 1950s he established a home for the street children of Naples which later evolved into an international network for social support, called Casa dello scugnizzo (House of the Urchins). Subsequently, following his laicization, he maintained his international reputation for his civil commitment and his studies on peace research and education.

In the late 1950s a number of children from Casa dello scugnizzo were enabled to spend some time with host families in Germany and the UK to broaden their horizons. A small number of these children returned to their host families in the following years spending several months with them. This initiative drew the attention of the BBC to the work of Father Borelli and he was the subject of a half-hour television programme in the "This is your Life" series broadcast in 1961. During the 1960s, Father Mario comes to the conclusion that the underlying problems, the social causes of abandonment, maladaptation and social exclusion remain yet unresolved. He decides to live in the Neapolitan slums, together with the Little Sisters of Charles de Foucauld, at the core of a network of voluntary groups of Christian origin that look at the Second Vatican Council as a spiritual and civil source and inspiration.

During these years, he reaches the most remote suburbs of the city with his “flying church”, a second-hand Austin car he had acquired when the Allies departed from Naples. He converted the boot of the car into an altar for Mass and a puppet theatre to teach catechism to the children. In 1949, he was appointed to teach religion at the Jacopo Sannazaro High School of Naples. With his seminary companion, Father Ciccio (Francesco) Spada, he decides to carry out an enterprise among the street children, commonly called in Naples “scugnizzi” (street urchins).

In 1946, Mario was consecrated as a priest . He founded the first section of the “Gioventù Operaia” (Young Labourers) and promoted “ONARMO” Opera Nazionale per l'Assistenza Religiosa e Morale degli Operai (National Labour for the Religious and Moral Assistance of Workers), becoming the factory chaplain of several companies.

Mario Borrelli (Naples, 19 September 1922 – Oxford, 13 February 2007) was a Neapolitan priest, sociologist and educationist.