Blessed Clelia Merloni

Clelia Merloni (10 March 1861 – 21 November 1930) was an Italian Roman Catholic nun and the founder of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Merloni was destined to follow her father into the business world but renounced his anti-religious sentiment and instead went down the religious path. Internal complications led to Merloni's fall from grace and she went into self-imposed exile where she received a dispensation to break from her religious vows. She later rejoined the congregation as a nun not long before her death. The beatification process commenced in 1988 under Pope John Paul II and she was titled as a Servant of God. Pope Francis confirmed her heroic virtue on 21 December 2016 and named her as Venerable. Francis later confirmed a miracle attributed to her in 2018 and she was beatified in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome on 3 November 2018. Clelia Merloni was born on 10 March 1861 in Forlì to Gioacchino Merloni and Teresa Brandinelli. She was baptized mere hours after her birth in the diocesan cathedral of Santa Croce from Bishop Pietro Paolo Trucchi. Merloni's mother died in 1864 and her maternal grandmother became her guardian. Her father remarried in 1866 to Maria Giovanna Boeri and both her grandmother and stepmother did their best to instill religious values and a love of God in her. Her father became engrossed in his work and his rising socio-economic status and this led to him exiting the faith and becoming instead an anti-clerical Freemason. Despite her frail health her father sought to provide her with the best education that was possible to attain in order to prepare her for following him in his business. She attended a private school in her town where she learnt basic skills such as reading and mathematics while also learning sewing and piano skills.