Soufien from Muslim to Christian, now I want to become a priest

(ANSA) – MAZARA DEL VALLO, APRIL 10 – Initially a Muslim, after the death of his wife Giusy Asaro the conversion to Christianity and now the dream of becoming a priest. It is the story of Soufien Giuseppe Zitoun, 44 years old, Tunisian born in Mazara del Vallo (Trapani) and student of the theological faculty of Sicily for less than a year. Soufien follows the preparatory lessons and, in the meantime, attends the religious institutes in Mazara del Vallo and Palermo of the Missionaries serving the poor who are inspired by the charisma of Giacomo Cusmano. “My dream is to become a priest – he tells ANSA – with my wife in hospital I experienced the suffering that culminated in her death in 2018. During her hospital stay I met Don Antonino Favata, chaplain of the Mazara hospital in Vallo. He was close to me, to my in-laws and to Giusy, accompanying her with prayer and the grace of the sacraments, preparing her for her passage from this earthly life to heaven”. After his wife’s death, Soufien began volunteering at the hospital with the Vom group. But at the same time he attended the Madonna del Paradiso Sanctuary: “It was the moment in which I wanted to know Jesus and so I began a neocatechumenal path which in June 2020 led me to receive the sacraments of Christian initiation”. Soufien was the first deputy municipal councilor in Mazara del Vallo and grew up as a Muslim in a Catholic-Christian environment, collaborating with the diocesan Caritas for the immigration desk and with the Franciscan nuns. Then the meeting with Giusi Asaro and the wedding at the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Paradiso with a mixed rite. In recent years he has continued to work in the field of unaccompanied migrant minors as a cultural mediator. “The death of my wife has marked my life – he explains – but I have had a great grace, that of faith. I am fascinated by the charisma of Giacomo Cusmano, the popular missions and the works of charity towards the poor. With my experience of cultural mediator with those arriving from Africa, I have come to know poverty in the faces and stories of migrants. This is why I look to the priesthood among missionaries who are servants of the poor”. (HANDLE).