Luigi Novarese
| Born | 29 July 1914, Casale Monferrato, Italy |
|---|---|
| Died | 20 July 1984, Rocca Priora, Italy |
| State of life | Diocesan priest and founder |
| Religious institute or church | Diocese of Casale Monferrato; Silent Workers of the Cross |
| Ecclesial status | Blessed; beatified on 11 May 2013 |
| Recognition | Heroic virtues recognized 27 March 2010; beatified 11 May 2013 |
Luigi Novarese was an Italian diocesan priest who founded the Volunteers of Suffering and Silent Workers of the Cross and promoted disabled and sick people as active subjects of the Church's mission.[1]
Overview
Luigi Novarese (29 July 1914 - 20 July 1984) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and the co-founder (alongside Sr. Elvira Myriam Psorulla) of the Apostolate of the Suffering as well as the Silent Workers of the Cross.[2][3] Novarese also established the Marian Priest League and the Brothers and Sisters of the Sick; he built several homes for those who were ill and disabled. He served in the Secretariat of State until leaving that position to work alongside the Italian Episcopal Conference and to dedicate more time to the ill and to the work of his orders.[4][5]
Novarese was beatified in mid-2013; Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone beatified him on the behalf of Pope Francis in the Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura.
Life
Luigi Novarese was born in 1914 as the last of nine children to the farmers Giusto Carlo Novarese and Teresa Sassone. His father died in 1915 from pneumonia.[2][4] Due to illness one leg was shorter than the other (fifteen centimetres) and so he had to wear special orthopedic shoes his entire life in order to compensate for the difference in leg height.[5]
In 1923 he was diagnosed with bone tuberculosis and his mother exhausted all available funds for treatment despite doctors giving up all hope on him recovering; he sent a letter to Filippo Rinaldi - the third superior of the Salesians of Don Bosco - and asked that he and his students intercede for him. Rinaldi replied and said he and the students would ask for the intercession of John Bosco.[4] He was able to leave the hospital on 17 May 1931 after having been cured of his ailment at a rapid pace.
During his numerous visits in the hospital he decided that he would become a doctor if he was able to recover though decided instead to join the priesthood after his mother died in 1935. He studied at Casale Monferrato and then at the Capranica College in Rome.[4] Novarese was ordained to the priesthood on 17 December 1938 in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. He received degrees in theological studies in 1939 (from the Gregorian) and in canon law on 9 April 1943.[2][5] On 1 May 1942 he accepted an invitation from Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini - the future Pope Paul VI - to join his staff in the Secretariat of State and he remained there until 12 May 1970 when he decided to leave and take up a new post elsewhere. He founded the Marian Priest League on 17 May 1943; he later co-founded the Volunteers of Suffering in 1947 and later the Silent Workers of the Cross in 1950. Novarese also founded the Brothers and Sisters of the Sick in 1952.[3]
In 1949 he obtained permission from Pope Pius XII to launch an hour dedicated to the sick on the Vatican Radio. Pope John XXIII - in 1962 - placed him in charge of the chaplains of all Italian hospitals. In 1970 he left the Secretariat of State and was put in charge of the health sector of the Italian Episcopal Conference where he remained until 1977.[4][5] He met Pope John Paul II on one occasion and the two embraced.
Novarese died in 1984; his remains were interred in the Santa Maria del Suffragio in Via Giulia in Rome.
Origins and formation
Luigi was the youngest of nine children and lost his father as an infant. Tubercular disease of the hip brought repeated treatment and long periods in hospitals during childhood; after recovery he first considered medicine and then entered seminary. He studied at the Capranica and Gregorian University, was ordained on 17 December 1938, and later trained in canon law for service in the Holy See. This chronology keeps civil identity, family formation, education, migration, and later ecclesial recognition in their proper order. A title conferred after death is not projected backward as though an eventual judgment were inevitable, and local people who shared the history retain their own agency.
Vocation and ministry
Novarese founded the Marian Priestly League in 1943, the Volunteers of Suffering with Elvira Myriam Psorulla in 1947, and the Silent Workers of the Cross. Retreats, publications, radio, rehabilitation centers, and pilgrimages aimed to include sick and disabled Catholics as evangelizers rather than recipients only. His organizations included consecrated and lay members with different health and vocational circumstances. The state of life stated here is exact: Holy Orders, religious profession, marriage, lay consecration, and lay discipleship are related but not interchangeable realities. Membership in an institute is asserted only where a competent source documents it, and an apostolate or friendship never creates an invented postnominal.
Christian witness and legacy
Spirituality
Christ's Passion and Resurrection, Mary, prayer, mutual accompaniment, and the conviction that illness does not erase baptismal mission shaped Novarese's apostolate. Pope Francis explicitly cautioned that suffering is not good in itself. Language about offering suffering must never pressure someone to refuse analgesia, rehabilitation, mental-health care, accommodations, advocacy, or honest lament, and disability must not be reduced to spiritual usefulness. The accessible center of this witness is sacramental faith expressed through prayer, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude, and fidelity to a concrete vocation. Reported visions, favors, healings, or remembered sayings remain subject to historical and ecclesial discernment; none adds to revelation or replaces the Gospel, the sacraments, medical care, or responsible moral judgment.
Work and historical significance
The associations, retreat house at Re, rehabilitation initiatives, periodical L'Ancora, broadcasts, and international networks changed Catholic pastoral care of illness. Psorulla, disabled members, clinicians, families, volunteers, and chaplains were coauthors of that development. Continuing organizations must keep disabled people in leadership, follow professional and safeguarding standards, and distinguish spiritual accompaniment from medical advice. Historical significance belongs not only to a named person but also to coworkers, families, patients, students, parishioners, local clergy, religious communities, and the people served. Institutions inspired by the life remain accountable to canon law, professional standards, safeguarding, and human dignity; later growth is evidence of influence, not automatic proof of sanctity.
Cause and veneration
Recognition and present status
The Frascati cause opened in 1989, heroic virtues were recognized in 2010, and Benedict XVI authorized the miracle decree in 2011. Acting on Pope Francis's mandate, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone beatified Luigi Novarese in Rome on 11 May 2013. The apostolic letter grants the title Blessed and a limited feast; it neither canonizes him nor makes every reported healing ecclesiastically approved. The controlling evidence is the dated act of the pope, Dicastery, competent diocese, eparchy, patriarchal authority, or authorized postulation cited below. Canonical stages answer different questions and cannot be collapsed: opening or validating an inquiry, recognizing heroic virtue or martyrdom, beatification, and canonization each has its own juridical effect and evidentiary threshold.[6]
Liturgical and devotional scope
Beatification authorizes limited public liturgical cult of Blessed Luigi Novarese in the places and manner established by the apostolic letter, with memory on 20 July. He is not an obligatory memorial in the General Roman Calendar. Events of the Silent Workers and Volunteers remain worship of God under approved rites and should be accessible, noncoercive, and centered on the full agency of disabled and sick people. Anniversary Masses, pilgrimages, portraits, named institutions, private prayers, and reports of favors must be described according to that exact rank. They do not by themselves create a feast, authenticate a miracle, establish a relic cult, or authorize liturgical texts; the competent calendar and ecclesiastical authority govern every public observance.[7]
Beatification
The beatification process launched in Frascati in a diocesan process that was inaugurated on 17 December 1998 and later concluded on 13 December 2003 - the Congregation for the Causes of Saints later validated this process in Rome on 26 November 2004. The official start to the cause came under John Paul II on 1 July 1994 and he became titled as a Servant of God. The C.C.S. later received the Positio in 2008 and the theologians approved it on 19 December 2008 as did the C.C.S. members on 5 February 2010. Pope Benedict XVI confirmed that Novarese led a life of heroic virtue on 27 March 2010 and titled the late priest as Venerable.
The process for a miracle spanned from 22 June 2007 and concluded its work on 8 January 2008; the C.C.S. validated this on 13 June 2008. Medical experts approved this miracle on 14 October 2010 as did theologians on 7 June 2011 and the C.C.S. on 15 November 2011. Benedict XVI approved the miracle on 19 December 2011 and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone presided over the formal beatification in the Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura on 11 May 2013 on the behalf of Pope Francis. The miracle in question was the 2002 healing of Graziella Paderno.
The current postulator for this cause is the Dominican priest Vito Tomás Gómez García.
References
- Back to citation Pope Francis address to the organizations founded by Novarese — The official papal address names Luigi Novarese Blessed, identifies his organizations, states that suffering is not a value in itself, and affirms disabled and sick people as active apostolic subjects.
- Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Back to citation occurrence 2.2 "Blessed Luigi Novarese". Saints SQPN. 16 July 2015. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
- Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 "Silent Workers of the Cross Association". EWTN. 12 July 2006. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
- Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 Back to citation occurrence 4.2 Back to citation occurrence 4.3 Back to citation occurrence 4.4 "Blessed Luigi Novarese". Opera Beato Luigi Novarese. Blessed Luigi Novarese's Apostolate. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
- Back to citation occurrence 5.0 Back to citation occurrence 5.1 Back to citation occurrence 5.2 Back to citation occurrence 5.3 "Blessed Luigi Novarese". Santi e Beati. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
- Back to citation Dicastery profile and apostolic letter for Blessed Luigi Novarese — The competent Dicastery supplies Novarese's dates, illness, priesthood, foundations, cause chronology, papal apostolic letter, beatification on 11 May 2013, and approved memory.
- Back to citation Dicastery guidance on remembering holiness — The Dicastery's current guidance distinguishes Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God and explains the corresponding rules for public cult, images, relics, calendars, and cause promotion.