Venerable Attilio Giordani

Attilio Giordani A.S.C. (13 February 1913 – 18 December 1972) was an Italian Roman Catholic and member from the Association of Salesian Cooperators. Giordani studied in Milan where he encountered the Salesians of Don Bosco alongside his brother Camillo. His brother was inspired to become a priest while Giordani was inspired to become a catechist and evangelist catering to the needs of the local children and adolescents. His work at a Salesian-managed oratorio was where he would meet his future wife (whom he married in 1944) during the time he did mandated service with the Italian Armed Forces during World War II. He had three children and followed them to Brazil to do volunteer work in the missions there. His time there was short-lived as he died suffering a heart attack while giving an address to a crowd. The process for Giordani's beatification launched in Milan (rather than Brazil where he died as would be the custom) in 1994 and he became titled as a Servant of God. The cause took a step forward in late 2013 after Pope Francis titled him as Venerable upon confirming that Giordani had practiced heroic virtue throughout his life. Attilio Giordani was born in Milan on 13 February 1913 as the first of three children to Arturo Giordani and Amalia Marucco. His father was a railroad worker who each winter morning would go to bring a basket of coal to two poor old men before going to work. His mother was a housewife who suffered from frequent bouts of illness. He had two siblings: sister Angela (who became a professed religious in the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco) and brother Camillo (b. 3.4.1923). From 1922 he started to attend school in the Oratorio di Sant'Agostino dei Salesiani with his brother Camillo under the direction of the Salesians of Don Bosco religious congregation.