Blessed Mario Ciceri

Mario Ciceri (8 September 1900 – 4 April 1945) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest from Milan. He was born to farmers and had an inclination to enter the priesthood since his childhood; he studied in Bergamo and in Milan before he was ordained as a priest at the Duomo in 1924 and was assigned his first pastoral role at a local parish church. Ciceri became renowned for his diligent attention to the poor and to the sick and also focused on children and teenagers. He revitalized Catholic Action in his area and was responsible for having recruited teens into the movement. His canonization cause was initiated in 2002 in Milan and he later became titled as Venerable on 1 December 2016 after Pope Francis confirmed that he had lived a life of heroic virtue. Ciceri was beatified in Milan on 30 April 2022. Mario Ciceri was born at Veduggio as the fourth of six children to the farmers Luigi Ciceri and Colomba Vimrcati; his uncle Francesco married Giuseppina Galbiati but upon her death the Ciceri household opened itself to him and his thirteen children (Galbiati had died in childbirth with her thirteenth and final child). The Ciceri household experienced economic hardship but he received his initial education from his mother who was a devout Catholic. From the age of eight, Ciceri expressed a strong desire to enter the priesthood and confided his inclination to the Veduggio parish priest, Carlo Maria Colombo. The latter took charge to inform his parents and his parents expressed their delight in their son's plans despite the economic conditions that would impede his education. However, his commitment as a student saw Ciceri achieve several scholarships and entrances to facilities that enabled for him to continue school and complete his theological and pastoral formation. In May 1908, he received his confirmation and made his First Communion later in May 1910. Upon the conclusion of his third grade, he continued his studies at the Gervasoni college in Valnegra in Bergamo.