Blessed Luigi Novarese

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Novarese was ordained to the priesthood on 17 December 1938 in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.