Teresio Olivelli

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Teresio Olivelli

Teresio Olivelli ( January 7, 1916 in Bellagio - January 17, 1945 in Hersbruck ) was an Italian lawyer , journalist , soldier and fighter of the Resistance against fascism and National Socialism . The partisan organization ANPI called him "a light figure of the Catholic resistance". Pope Francis honored him as a martyr . He was beatified in 2018 .

Live and act

Olivelli was the younger of two brothers. His parents were Domenico Olivelli and Clelia Invernizzi. An important caregiver was his maternal uncle, Rocco Invernizzi, a priest. He attended elementary school in Carugo and Zeme . In 1926 the family moved to Mortara , where he attended the Travelli high school and joined the Azione Cattolica . He continued his education at the Liceo Cairoli of Vigevano . During his school and university days he confessed regularly, went to communion every day and meditated on spiritual scriptures. The exhibition of his thesis was prevented by the fascist regime because he was too Catholic. At the age of 18, according to the testimony of companions, he was a self-confident young man, tall, slim, with a firm faith, a convinced and convincing Catholic. He then studied law from 1934 to 1938 at the Collegio Ghislieri in Pavia . In 1936 the family found it difficult to prevent him from going into the Spanish Civil War to fight the “godless” communists and anarchists. He stayed in Pavia and received his doctorate with distinction in administrative law in 1938 . In Pavia, he won the affection of professors and fellow students for his generosity and kindness. His intense prayer life earned him the nickname "Padre Oliva".

Immediately after graduation, he became assistant professor of administrative law at the University of Turin , where he was also given the task of promoting young stragglers. He also looked after the poor in Cottolengo. Like many Catholic contemporaries, he believed that fascism could be given a Christian face. In 1939 he taught at the Littorali in Trieste. He wrote articles on legal and social issues in the university newspaper Libro e Muschetto and in the magazine Civiltà Fascista . Eventually he was appointed secretary of the Fascist Cultural Institute in Rome and also took on a role in the Office of Studies and Legislation in the Palazzo del Littorio . Although he accorded the same dignity to all people and for him three characteristics of the fascists were absolutely unacceptable - violence, oppression, racism - he became more and more entangled in their cultural bureaucracy. In 1939 and 1941 he was sent to Berlin for further training and experienced Nazi politics there.

Retreat of the Alpini from the Don

Despite his increasing aversion to the Nazi regime, he remained a strict anti-communist, reported to the mountain troops and volunteered as a lieutenant in the Russian campaign in 1941 . He cared for his soldiers in an exemplary manner during the extremely cold winter of 1941-42 and during the retreat from the Don on a two thousand kilometer walk through the snow. Equipment and supplies were catastrophic. Olivelli had the injured cared for, comforted the desperate and also stood by the side of the dying. He read the Gospels to his soldiers, and provided field services and communion. In March 1943 he returned to Italy, disarmed, visited families of the fallen or wrote them letters. At the age of only 26 he was appointed rector of the Collegio Ghislieri in Pavia, a position that he was only able to exercise for a few weeks because he was drafted again in July 1943. He came to the 2nd Artillery Regiment of the Alpini , stationed in Vipiteno .

On returning to Italy, he increasingly distanced himself from the fascist regime, which he had previously tried - in vain - to reform from within. After the armistice in Cassibile , on September 9, 1943, he was captured by German troops. Since he refused to take an oath on Mussolini, he was first imprisoned in a camp in Innsbruck. On October 20, 1943, he managed to escape from a camp in Pongau, Salzburg . After a long, lonely escape, he reached Udine , where he was hidden by the Ariis family. He joined the Catholic wing of the Italian freedom movement and took part in building the Brigate Fiamme Verdi in Brescia. He took on the battle name Agostino Gracchi and served as a liaison officer in the Brescia and Cremona area , also to other formations of the CLN.In February 1944, he founded the resistance magazine Il Ribelle (The Rebel) together with Carlo Bianchi and Claudio Sartori , the first edition of which was 15,000 and which was distributed in numerous cities in northern Italy. At this point Olivelli was already busy with intensive considerations for the reconstruction of the Italian state according to Christian principles after the foreseeable collapse of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana . The first edition of Ribelle , dated March 5, 1944, the memory was dedicated to two resistance fighters, Astolfo Lunardi and Ermanno Margheriti that on February 5, 1944 by a special court in Brescia sentenced to death and in the following morning Mompiano had been shot .

On April 27, 1944, Bianchi and Olivelli were arrested in Milan and taken to San Vittore prison. Sartori had previously been arrested, but survived the Nazi regime. Olivelli was to be shot with Bianchi and 70 other prisoners in retaliation for the deaths of seven German soldiers in Carpi . The Archbishop of Milan Ildefons Schuster ensured that he was not killed immediately. The two resistance fighters were sent to the Fossoli transit camp . Olivelli managed to hide in the camp. Carlo Bianchi was murdered. Olivelli's attempts to escape failed and he was finally discovered. Olivelli's other stops were Gries in Bozen , Flossenbürg on September 5, 1944 , and Hersbruck on October 1, 1944 . There he stood at the side of the terminally ill Odoardo Focherini , who had saved his life in Fossoli. Focherini died in December 1944; he too was later beatified. When a young inmate from the East was unjustifiably beaten by the Kapo in January 1945 , he threw himself in between - although he was already sick and emaciated to the bone. The irritated kapo gave him a violent kick in the stomach, followed by 25 blows. He came to the infirmary but did not recover. He was conscious and prayed to the end. He gave a friend the last of his intact clothes.

Teresio Olivelli died on January 17, 1945, his body was cremated. He was unmarried.

Award, commemoration

On April 25, 1953 (according to other sources as early as 1945 or 1952) he was posthumously awarded the Medaglia d'Oro al Valor Militare , the Italian gold medal for bravery. He is also said to have been awarded the Italian Gold Medal of Resistance ( Medaglia d'oro della Resistenza ).

Memorial plaques were placed on the house where he was born in Bellagio and in the Catholic parish church of the Birth of Mary in Hersbruck . His name is also engraved on a plaque commemorating several victims in Rovereto . On January 19, 2018, the German artist Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block in front of the Istituto Benedetto Cairoli in Vigevano in his memory.

In Brescia , Carpi , Nove , Pavia , Sorbolo and Vigevano streets were named after Teresio Olivelli, in Lecco and Milan one piazza each.

  • Hersbruck
  • Rovereto
  • Vigevano

beatification

In the post-war years there were suggestions for beatification from several quarters. At that time, however, the diocese of Bamberg , in whose territory Olivelli had died, was responsible for the procedure . Finally, the diocese of Vigevano requested the transfer of jurisdiction, as Olivelli had spent two thirds of his life in this diocese. Documents began to be collected and survivors were interviewed.

The official beatification process was opened on March 29, 1987 by Mario Rossi, the then diocesan bishop of Vigevano . According to the official Nihil obstat of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints , the process was officially initiated by Pope John Paul II on January 19, 1988, when he appointed Teresio Olivelli as Servant of God . Giovanni Locatelli , Rossi's successor in Vigevano, ended the opening procedure with a festive service on September 16, 1989. Innocenzo Venchi (1986-2004), then Abdul Rahman (2004-2011), Sr. Tiziana Adriana Conterbia (from 2011) served as postulator . and finally Monsignor Paolo Rizzi. Mario Tarantola acted as chairman of the Tribunale Ecclesiastico , the rapporteurs were Cristoforo Bove (1992-2010) and then Vincenzo Criscuolo. Right from the start, the applicants decided to take both paths to beatification that were possible at the time - on the one hand because of Christian virtue and miracles, and on the other because of martyrdom.

Although the positio had already been completed in 2007, it took another ten years before the struggle between the two justifications could be concluded. The panel of historians unanimously approved the beatification on May 24, 2011. The theologians did not come to a decision in their session on December 17, 2013, but on December 2, 2014, the majority of them joined the historians. On December 14, 2015, Olivelli was recognized by the Pope with the confirmation of the heroic degree of virtue as Venerable Servant of God (venerabile), after the presentation of further evidence on June 16, 2017 also as a martyr who fell victim to “hatred of the faith”. The solemn beatification took place by Cardinal Angelo Amato on February 3, 2018 in the Palasport Dal Lago in Vigevano in the presence of numerous bishops, including Archbishop Mario Delpini from Milan and Diocesan Bishop Ludwig Schick from Bamberg.

His feast day is January 16 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Teresio Olivelli  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Luminosa figura di partigiano cattolico DONNE E UOMINI DELLA RESISTENZA: Teresio Olivelli . In the Italian original: "Luminosa figura di partigiano cattolico", official website of the Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d'Italia, accessed on October 3, 2018
  2. ↑ a b c d Saretta Marotta: OLIVELLI, Teresio. Treccani, 2013, accessed October 13, 2018 (Italian).
  3. ^ Teresio il beato di Bellaggio. Valtellinanews.it, January 23, 2018, accessed October 13, 2018 (Italian).
  4. ↑ Lorenzo Morandotti: Teresio Olivelli è beato: tutte le foto e il filmato. Corriere di Como, February 8, 2018, accessed October 13, 2018 (Italian).
  5. ↑ Gianpiero Pettiti: Beato Teresio Olivelli Laico e martire. Santi e Beati., January 7, 2018, accessed October 14, 2018 (Italian).
  6. ↑ Helmut Renner: Teresio Olivelli - biography. Documentation Center Hersbruck e. V., February 9, 2018, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Olga Focherini: Teresio Olivelli . In: Uomini Nomi Memoria . Ed .: Centro Studi Fossoli. Retrieved October 3, 2018
  8. ↑ Vigevano, cerimonia in grande per la beatificazione di Teresio Olivelli . In: Il Giorno of February 1, 2018. Retrieved October 3, 2018
  9. ↑ Codex Iuris Canonici , cc1403, § 1, i. V. m. Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister of January 25, 1983.
  10. ^ Beatification (beatification) . Retrieved October 3, 2018.
  11. ↑ Antonio Borrelli et al. Emilia Flocchini: Beato Teresio Olivelli . SantiBeati.it. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
  12. ^ Promulgazione di Decreti della Congregazione delle Cause dei Santi. In: Daily Bulletin. Holy See Press Office , December 15, 2015, accessed January 28, 2020 (Italian).
  13. ↑ Una vita tra Resistenza e Carità , l'informatore, February 1, 2018 (Italian), accessed on July 25, 2018
  14. ↑ Diocese of Carpi : L'arcivescovo di Bamberga, monsignor Schick, a Carpi , accessed on July 27, 2018
  15. ↑ Beatification of Teresio Olivelli on February 3rd, 2018 in Vigevano , website of the Hersbruck Concentration Camp Documentation Center, text: Helmut Renner, February 9th, 2018

Remarks

  1. ↑ The third path to beatification and canonization, the gift of self , was only opened in July 2017 by the Apostolic Letter Maiorem hac dilectionem from Pope Francis I.
personal data
SURNAME Olivelli, Teresio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian soldier, resistance fighter against National Socialism, blessed of the Roman Catholic Church
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Bellagio , Italy
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1945
Place of death Hersbruck subcamp