Luigi Bordino
Italian religious (1922-1977)
Feast: 27 August (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
The Vatican record
- 3 April 2014 — Miracle through their intercession approved (decree list, 2014)
Who they were
Andrea Bordino was born in Castellinaldo, near Cuneo, on 12 August 1922, into a large farming family. Called up to the mountain artillery in 1942, he fought in Russia, was taken prisoner and survived the Siberian prison camps.
He joined the Brothers of St Joseph Benedict Cottolengo in Turin, taking the name Brother Luigi of the Consolata, and became an outstanding nurse and anaesthetist and a pioneer blood donor, giving his time to the poorest patients. In June 1975 he found he had acute leukaemia; he died in Turin on 25 August 1977, and donated his corneas.
The miracles
Sister Maddalena Berruto — Turin, Italy — November–December 1989
A Cottolengo sister and teacher, who had worked alongside Brother Luigi, began in November 1989 to suffer severe abdominal pain with blood in her urine, and was operated on for a bladder lesion. She and her fellow sisters prayed to Brother Luigi alone, and she recovered. The case was hard fought: the Vatican's doctors split four to three in 2010 and disagreed again in 2012, before five of seven found the healing scientifically inexplicable in June 2013.
Why that counted as sanctity
The case of Sister Maddalena Berruto was examined by the Church's doctors and theologians and approved as a miracle, opening the way to beatification. Beatification followed on May 2015 by Cardinal Angelo Amato, for Pope Francis.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography of Blessed Luigi della Consolata
- Il Timone, May 2015 - the miracle that brought Brother Bordino to the altars
- Cottolengo - Fratel Luigi Bordino
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Wikidata Q3839369 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Luigi Bordino (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.