Francesco Spinelli

The Vatican record

• 6 March 2018 — Miracle through their intercession approved (decree list, 2018)
• 19 March 2019 — Heroic virtue declared — title Venerable (decree list, 2019)

Who they were

Francesco Spinelli was a diocesan priest of Bergamo who founded the Sisters Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, devoted to adoration of the Eucharist and to serving 'those nobody wants'.

In 1889 his institute went bankrupt after he was abandoned and betrayed by those who should have helped him; he bore it in silence and forgave them. Taken in by Bishop Bonomelli of Cremona, he refounded the institute in poverty and led it for over twenty years until his death in 1913.

The miracles

A healing investigated in Brescia in 1955 was approved in 1992 for his beatification. The miracle for his canonisation was approved by decree on 6 March 2018; the sources checked do not describe either healing.

Why that counted as sanctity

Beatification followed on 21 June 1992 by John Paul II. Canonisation followed on 14 October 2018 by Francis.

Connected on this site

• Geltrude Comensoli Saint
  “Spinelli became close contemporaries of Geltrude Comensoli and Luigi Maria Palazzolo and had a previous collaboration with Comensoli in which the two established a religious institute in Bergamo before a rift between members caused Spinelli to distance himself from its work and leave.” — Wikipedia