Filippo Rinaldi

For the Italian footballer, see Filippo Rinaldi (footballer).

Blessed Filippo Rinaldi S.D.B.
Filippo Rinaldi on 24 April 1922
Priest
Born	(1856-05-28)28 May 1856 Lu Monferrato, Alessandria, Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia
Died	5 December 1931(1931-12-05) (aged 75) Turin, Kingdom of Italy
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Beatified	29 April 1990, Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II
Feast	5 December
Attributes	Priest's attire
Patronage	Wrocław

Filippo Rinaldi (28 May 1856 – 5 December 1931) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Salesians of Don Bosco; he served as the third Rector Major for the order from 1922 until his death in 1931. He founded the Secular Institute of Don Bosco Volunteers. Rinaldi was close friends since his childhood to Giovanni Bosco and Paolo Albera and it was Bosco who guided Rinaldi who was torn in his adolescence between the farming life and the religious life. The order held him in high esteem from the outset and noted the potential within him as well as seeing the charism of Bosco encompassed in Rinaldi.

Rinaldi's beatification was celebrated under Pope John Paul II in 1990.

Life

Filippo Rinaldi was born on 28 May 1856 in Lu Monferrato, the eighth of nine children of the farmers Cristoforo Rinaldi and Antonia Brezza. He first met Giovanni Bosco in 1861, when Bosco passed through Lu with his boys. Two of his brothers also became priests.

Rinaldi began his schooling at Mirabello Monferrato, where the Salesians of Don Bosco oversaw his education and where his assistant was Paolo Albera, but he soon returned home despite Bosco's efforts to make him reconsider. He resumed life as a farmer, though he received letters from Bosco and books from Albera on religious vocations and discernment. In 1874 his parents welcomed Bosco, who visited Rinaldi in person, but Rinaldi remained firm in his refusal to continue his studies. Bosco's insistence at least won over his parents, his mother being the most outspoken, and some people from the town also tried to persuade him. In 1876 he was preparing to marry when Bosco visited once more to urge him to consider religious life instead; in November 1877 he agreed to go to the order's house at Sampierdarena, which Bosco described as a place "for late vocations".

The director at Sampierdarena was his friend Paolo Albera. Taking up books again was difficult for Rinaldi, but he persevered and entered the novitiate at San Benigno Canavese in September 1879; he received the cassock from Bosco himself on 20 October 1879. He made his first profession on 13 August 1880 and was ordained to the priesthood on 23 December 1882 in Ivrea Cathedral by Davide Riccardi, then Bishop of Ivrea. Rinaldi had not intended to become a priest, but his superiors saw potential in him and asked him to pursue ordination. Bosco appointed him director of the house for late vocations at Mathi. In 1887 Bosco showed Rinaldi a map of Australia and told him that the Salesians would soon work there, but that Rinaldi's own work would be in Spain. In 1889 he was sent to Spain as director of the order's house at Sarrià in Barcelona, where he remained until 1901, serving also as provincial for Spain from 1892 to 1901; during those years the order opened sixteen new houses in Spain and Portugal. In 1895 he began publishing the periodical Lecturas Católicas.

On 1 April 1901 he returned to Turin as the order's vicar general under Michele Rua; in 1910 his old friend Albera succeeded Rua. After Albera's death in 1921, the General Chapter elected Rinaldi Rector Major and third successor of Bosco on 24 April 1922. He established the World Federation of Past Pupils and helped organise the Salesian international congress. In 1925 he undertook a series of visits across Europe, including Poland and France, and returned to Spain. He founded the Secular Institute of the Volunteers of Don Bosco in 1917 and sent members of the order to countries such as India and Japan for the missions. During his term the number of Salesians rose by about 66 per cent, from 6,000 to 10,000.

Rinaldi died on 5 December 1931 in Turin, having suffered from a weakened heart muscle since 1928. His remains were later moved to the crypt of the Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians. The institute he founded received diocesan approval from Cardinal Michele Pellegrino, Archbishop of Turin, on 31 January 1971 and pontifical approval from Pope Paul VI on 5 August 1978.

Beatification

Filipe Rinaldi on a postcard from 24 April 1922

The beatification process opened in an informative process in Turin that Cardinal Maurilio Fossati oversaw from 5 November 1947 until its closure in 1953; theologians determined his spiritual writings were in line with official doctrine and so approved them in a decree issued on 19 February 1956. The formal introduction to the cause came under Pope Paul VI on 11 June 1977 and he was therefore titled as a Servant of God. Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero oversaw an apostolic process from 1980 to 1981 and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints later validated both processes on 25 June 1982 before receiving the Positio from the postulation in 1985. Theologians approved the cause on 14 October 1986 as did the C.C.S. on 23 December 1986 which allowed for Pope John Paul II to confirm his heroic virtue and name him as Venerable on 3 January 1987.

The miracle required for his beatification was investigated and later received C.C.S. validation on 18 July 1986 before a medical board approved it on 7 June 1989; theologians followed suit on 13 October 1989 as did the C.C.S. on 19 December 1989. John Paul II approved the miracle on 3 March 1990 and later beatified Rinaldi in Saint Peter's Square on 29 April 1990. The miracle in question was the healing and regeneration of the jaw of Maria Carla who was shot in the face on 20 April 1945 at the end of World War II during a conflict.

The current postulator for this cause is Pierluigi Cameroni.

External links

• Media related to Filipe Rinaldi at Wikimedia Commons
• Hagiography Circle
• Saints SQPN