Priest Don Dario Prepares to Leave Riva After 14 Years of Service

“Leaving is painful, but change can be positive.” Don Dario Pret, after 14 years, is preparing to leave Riva and Santa Maria Assunta, having been sent to Cles by the bishop to whom he had promised obedience on the day of his ordination. “When monsignor Bressan asked me, like other priests in the diocese, for availability, I gave it, convinced and full, with absolute serenity.” This does not mean he wouldn’t have liked to stay in Riva.

The rotation of priests is a natural occurrence within the Church, which faces a progressive decline in vocations. “Maybe change is positive. After 14 years,” explains don Dario, “one risks repeating the same things year after year.” The change can serve as a boost, a discovery of other tasks to undertake, the chance to do them differently and better.

Don Dario’s journey before the transfer

Fourteen years ago, don Dario arrived from Pieve Tesino, where he had spent the previous 18 years. He admits he was skeptical, frightened. Like someone who knows they are coming from a small town to the city: wherever you look, you see the church steeple. More people, problems, a different scale.

Moreover, with the awareness of predecessors of great stature with whom he would inevitably have to compare himself, first among them monsignor Bartoli. But the fears lasted only a short time, thanks primarily to a characteristic—whether a virtue or something else—that everyone, friends or not, acknowledges in don Dario: his ability to always be himself.

Interventions and emotions

Since arriving, he has carried out a substantial number of repairs on buildings: new roofs, the church, the Oratory, and the nuns’ house. “They called me the priest of the mortar,” he says with a smile, but he immediately adds that he would be disappointed if his attention to such issues had taken too much time away from pastoral work.

Nevertheless, he leaves with regret for not having finished the Inviolata. However, he is convinced it is better to proceed cautiously, to think a thousand times before acting. This sober and pragmatic style of pastoral care will be his last message to the residents of Riva next Sunday at the 11 a.m. Mass. It will be concrete and precise, yes. But also emotional.