Rolando Rivi

Rolando Rivi.

Rolando Maria Rivi (born January 7, 1931 in San Valentino, today municipality of Castellarano ; † April 13, 1945 in Monchio, today municipality of Palagano ) was an Italian seminarist , one of the victims of the communist partisans in the so-called triangle of death in Emilia during the Second world war . He is venerated as a blessed in the Roman Catholic Church .

biography

Rivi was born in 1931, the second of three sons of Roberto Rivi and Albertina Canovi. In autumn 1942 he entered the seminary of Marola , but in 1944 after the German occupation of the country he was forced to return to his parents' household. But he still felt like a seminarian. He continued to wear the cassock against his parents' council out of fear of anti-religious hatred, as acts of violence and murder of priests were very common at that time.

On April 10, 1945, Rivi was captured by a group of communist partisans. After three days of beatings, humiliation and torture, he was shot with a pistol in a forest near Monchio. According to some partisans, including the murderer, Giuseppe Corghi, on the evening of April 14th, Don Alberto Camellini, pastor of San Valentino, and Roberto Rivi found Rivi's body, severely disfigured as a result of the violence. The body had two fatal wounds, one on the left temple and one through the heart. The next day the remains were brought to Monchio, where a Christian burial could be performed.

A few days after the end of the Second World War in Europe, the body of Rivis was transferred to the cemetery of San Valentino on May 29, 1945 in homage to all Catholic parishioners. After his grave had become the destination of pilgrimages , on June 26, 1997 his bones were reburied in a solemn ceremony in the shrine of the parish priest of San Valentino.

beatification

After a series of miraculous healings recognized by the Catholic Church because they were intercessional , the Archdiocese of Modena Rivis opened the beatification process on January 7, 2006 . In May 2012 the responsible congregation in the Vatican confirmed the validity of his martyrdom in odium fidei . Pope Francis approved the decree on March 28, 2013 recognizing Rivi's martyrdom. On October 5, 2013, the beatification was celebrated in front of thousands of people in the sports hall of Modena .

Attempt at an extra-church honor

In 2011, Il Popolo della Libertà , the former party of Silvio Berlusconi , and the Lega Nord in Reggio Emilia called for an urban street to be named after Rivi, but the proposal was rejected by the left majority in the Council. After the beatification, at the suggestion of Councilor Davide Boldrin, a street naming in honor of Rivi in ​​the municipality of Novi di Modena was approved in autumn 2013 .

Web links

• The Zenit news service on the biography and beatification of Rivis (German)
• The weblog IlMostardino.it about the extra-church honor Rivis (Italian)