Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News Vatican

The ‘extraordinary’ stories of three new venerables

byGuest Contributor
2 September 2021
Reading Time: 5 mins read
AA
The ‘extraordinary’ stories of three new venerables

Path to sainthood: 140 statues of various saints located on the top of the colonnade in Saint Peter’s Square.

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

By Andrea Acali

THE Church has three new venerables.

Pope Francis authorised the promulgation of the decrees of the heroic virtues of a religious, and of two laywomen, all Italians.

 He did so during the course of an audience granted to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro.

The congregation’s decrees represent a further step toward the recognition of sanctity.

Necessary now for their beatification is a miracle attributed to their intercession.

The Servants of God proclaimed Venerable are: Fr Placido Cortese (in the world: Nicolo), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventuals, was born on March 7, 1907, at Cherso (today Croatia) and died at Trieste, Italy, in November 1944.

Maria Cristina Cella Mocellin, lay mother of a family was born August 18, 1969, at Cinisello Balsamo, Italy and died at Bassano del Grappa, Italy, on October 22, 1995.

Enrica Beltrame Quattrocchi, laywoman, was born on April 6, 1914, at Rome, Italy and died there on June 16, 2012.

Holy souls: Venerable Servants of God Enrica Beltrame Quattrocchi, Maria Cristina Cella Morcellin and Fr Placido Cortese.

 A Franciscan tortured by the Nazis

Related Stories

Pope Francis asks for prayers after 50 migrants found dead in Texas trailer truck

Abdallah family deliver powerful Vatican speech

Look to the future, not the past, pope tells families

The first of the new Venerables is Nicolo Cortese, a Franciscan who in the course of Second World War went out of his way to help stragglers, Jews, and those wanted by the Nazi Fascists.

After his studies and noviciate at Padua and Rome’s Saint Bonaventure Theological Institute, he carried out his priestly ministry between St Anthony’s Basilica at Padua and a Milanese parish, before returning to the saint’s city to direct Saint Anthony’s Messenger.

He increased the subscriptions to the magazine from 200,000 to 800,000 copies.

After the armistice, he was active in an underground rescue network. Individuals who infiltrated the network betrayed him; he was arrested and taken to Trieste.

He died after being tortured.

His body was probably cremated in the Saint Sabba rice field.

A mother in love with life and her children

Maria Cristina Cella Mocellin’s human story recalls a lot that of another mother of a family, now St Gianna Beretta Molla.

After giving thought to the religious life, Maria Cristina, then 16, was on holiday at her grandparents’ home in Veneto.

She fell in love with 19-year-old Carlo Mocellin.

Their engagement was marked by the girl’s illness – a sarcoma that obliged her to undergo surgery and very painful therapy, but which was also characterised by her intense spiritual understanding.

When the illness seemed to be eradicated, the two married in 1991.

Their first son, Francesco, arrived in December and, 18 months later, Lucia was born.

When Maria Cristina was expecting her third child, the sarcoma returned. She postponed her chemotherapy so that her son Riccardo could be born, but when her treatment began it was, unfortunately, late.

Maria Cristina left a letter to her husband to be read to Riccardo when he would able to understand it – a letter in which she described him as “a gift for us.”

She wrote: “I believe that God would not permit pain if He did not want to obtain a secret and mysterious but real good from it. I believe I can do nothing greater than to say to the Lord: Thy will be done. I believe that one day I’ll understand the meaning of my suffering and I will thank God. I believe that without my pain endured with serenity and dignity, something would be missing in the harmony of the universe.”

Maria Cristina died at 26.

‘God’s little ladle’

The last of the new venerables died when she was nearly 100.

Enrica Beltrame Quattrocchi, fourth and last daughter of another couple of Blesseds, Luigi, a friend of De Gasperi and Don Sturzo, and Maria Corsini. The older sons became priests and the third daughter was a Benedictine nun.

Enrichetta’s life – who described herself as “God’s little ladle” –, was one of prayer and charity towards the last.

With a degree in Modern Literature from La Sapienza University, she specialised in the History of Art, which she taught in several schools of Rome.

She was tireless in her volunteer work.

From 1936 she accompanied the trips of numerous UNITALSI patients to Lourdes and Loreto.

From 1938 she was part of the Saint Vincent of Paul’s Daughters of Charity, presiding over a group of ‘ladies’ in the area of Trastevere and of Montagnola.

During the Second World War, in contact with the Monastery of Subiaco and the entire Beltrame Quattrocchi family, she helped Jews, soldiers, and persecuted politicians.

Last June her remains were transferred from the Verano cemetery to the Basilica of Saint Prassede, which she frequented every day; from 1994 she dedicated herself fully to her parents’ Cause of Beatification.

Exaudi.org

ShareTweet
Previous Post

San Sisto College community celebrates 60 years of educating young women

Next Post

Q&A – Does God create new angels and will our Guardian Angels be united with us in Heaven?

Guest Contributor

Related Posts

Tragedy: Debra Ponce, left, and Angelita Olvera of San Antonio mourn near the scene where dozens of immigrants were found dead inside a trailer truck a day earlier on June 28. Photo: CNS
World

Pope Francis asks for prayers after 50 migrants found dead in Texas trailer truck

29 June 2022
Abdallah family deliver powerful Vatican speech
Family

Abdallah family deliver powerful Vatican speech

27 June 2022
Look to the future, not the past, pope tells families
News

Look to the future, not the past, pope tells families

27 June 2022
Next Post
Guardian Angels: Will our guardian angel be with us in heaven?

Q&A – Does God create new angels and will our Guardian Angels be united with us in Heaven?

New interview: Pope Francis answers questions on significant topics in a rare, wide-ranging interview with COPE Radio Network.

Pope Francis speaks in rare, wide-ranging interview on latest Motu Proprio, China, German bishops, Vatican corruption

Martyrs: A painting depicts 103 Korean martyrs canonised by Pope John Paul II in 1984. Photos: CNS

South Korean diocese says remains of first Catholic martyrs recovered

Popular News

  • Performer: Liza is a trained gymnast and contortionist and has enjoyed performing at St Eugene College.

    Young Ukrainian performer settles into new life in Brisbane school

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Abdallah family deliver powerful Vatican speech

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Catholics need better understanding of the Mass, Pope says in follow-up letter to Traditionis Custodes

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Fr Josh braves ‘freezing’ June night to raise awareness for homelessness at Vinnies Sleepout

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Fr El Louie Jimenez ordained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Plenary task: “Reveal the face of Christ”
News

Australian Plenary Council aims to avert Church ‘moment of crisis’

by Mark Bowling
30 June 2022
0

LEADING Catholics say decisions made at the second assembly of the Plenary Council next week – could...

Man of faith: Newly-ordained priest Fr El Louie Jiminez with Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge at St Stephen's Cathedral on June 29. Photos: Alan Edgecomb / Purple Moon Photography

Fr El Louie Jimenez ordained

30 June 2022
Braving the cold: Caloundra Unity College Principal Daniel McShea ,Our Lady of the Rosary College Principal Dr Michael Stewart and Caloundra priest Fr Joshua Whitehead.

Fr Josh braves ‘freezing’ June night to raise awareness for homelessness at Vinnies Sleepout

30 June 2022
Catholics need better understanding of the Mass, Pope says in follow-up letter to Traditionis Custodes

Catholics need better understanding of the Mass, Pope says in follow-up letter to Traditionis Custodes

30 June 2022
Performer: Liza is a trained gymnast and contortionist and has enjoyed performing at St Eugene College.

Young Ukrainian performer settles into new life in Brisbane school

29 June 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping