Two Italians of the twentieth century advance on the path to holiness

Two Italian contemporaries, a young priest who resisted the Nazis and was shot and killed, and a seminarian who died aged 15 from tuberculosis, are both closer to being declared saints.

Pope Francis put forward the causes for the beatification of Fr. Giovanni Fornasini and Pasquale Canzii on January 21, together with six other men and women.

Pope Francis declared Giovanni Fornasini, assassinated by a Nazi officer at the age of 29, a martyr killed out of hatred of the faith.

Fornasini was born near Bologna, Italy, in 1915, and had an older brother. It is said that he was a poor student and after leaving school he worked for a time as an elevator boy at the Grand Hotel in Bologna.

He eventually entered the seminary and was ordained a priest in 1942, at the age of 27. In his homily at his first mass, Fornasini said: "The Lord has chosen me, a rascal among the rascals."

Despite starting his priestly ministry amidst the difficulties of the Second World War, Fornasini earned a reputation as an enterprising one.

He opened a school for boys in his parish outside Bologna, in the municipality of Sperticano, and a seminary friend, Fr. Lino Cattoi, described the young priest as “always seems to be running. He was always around trying to free people from their difficulties and solve their problems. He wasn't afraid. He was a man of great faith and was never shaken ”.

When the Italian dictator Mussolini was overthrown in July 1943, Fornasini ordered the church bells to be rung.

The Kingdom of Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, but northern Italy, including Bologna, was still under the control of Nazi Germany. Sources about Fornasini and his activities during this period are incomplete, but he is described as "everywhere" and it is known that at least once he provided refuge in his rectory to the survivors of one of three Allied bombings of the city. powers.

Fr Angelo Serra, another parish priest of Bologna, recalled that “on the sad day of November 27, 1943, when 46 of my parishioners were killed in Lama di Reno by allied bombs, I remember Fr. Giovanni worked hard in the rubble with his pickaxe as if he were trying to save his mother. "

Some sources claim that the young priest was working with Italian partisans who fought the Nazis, although reports differ on the degree of connection with the brigade.

Some sources also report that he intervened on several occasions to save civilians, especially women, from mistreatment or from being taken by German soldiers.

Sources also provide different accounts of Fornasini's last months of life and the circumstances of his death. Fr. Amadeo Girotti, a close friend of Fornasini, wrote that the young priest had been allowed to bury the dead in San Martino del Sole, Marzabotto.
Between 29 September and 5 October 1944, Nazi troops had carried out a mass killing of at least 770 Italian civilians in the village.

According to Girotti, after having granted Fornasini permission to bury the dead, the officer killed the priest in the same place on 13 October 1944. His body, shot in the chest, was identified the next day.

In 1950, the president of Italy posthumously awarded Fornasini the Gold Medal for Military Valor of the country. His cause for beatification was opened in 1998.

Just a year before Fornasini, another boy was born in different regions of the south. Pasquale Canzii was the first child born to devoted parents who had struggled for many years to have children. He was known by the affectionate name of "Pasqualino", and from a young age he had a calm temperament and an inclination towards the things of God.

His parents taught him to pray and to think of God as his Father. And when his mother took him to church with her, he listened and understood everything that was happening.

Twice before his sixth birthday, Canzii had accidents with a fire that burned his face, and both times his eyes and vision were miraculously unharmed. Despite sustaining severe injuries, in both cases her burns eventually healed completely.

Canzii's parents had a second child and as he was struggling to provide financially for the family, the boy's father decided to emigrate to the United States for work. Canzii would have exchanged letters with his father, even if they would never meet again.

Canzii was a model student and began serving at the local parish altar. He has always participated in the religious life of the parish, from Mass to novenas, to the rosary, to the Via Crucis.

Convinced that he had a vocation to the priesthood, Canzii entered the diocesan seminary at the age of 12. When questioned with contempt as to why he was studying for the priesthood, the boy replied: “because, when I am ordained a priest, I will be able to save many souls and I will have saved mine. The Lord wills and I obey. I bless the Lord a thousand times who called me to know and love him. "

In the seminary, as in his early childhood, those around Canzii noticed his uncommon level of holiness and humility. He often wrote: “Jesus, I want to become a saint, soon and great”.

A fellow student described him as "always easy to laugh, simple, good, like a child". The student himself said that the young seminarian "burned in his heart with lively love for Jesus and also had a tender devotion to Our Lady".

In his last letter to his father, on December 26, 1929, Canzii writes: “yes, you do well to submit to the Holy Will of God, who always arranges things for our good. It doesn't matter if we have to suffer in this life, because if we have offered our pains to God in consideration of our sins and those of others, we will acquire merit for that heavenly homeland in which we all desire “.

Despite the obstacles to his vocation, including his weak health and his father's desire to become a lawyer or doctor, Canzii did not hesitate to follow what he knew was God's will for his life.

In early 1930, the young seminarian fell ill with tuberculosis and died on January 24 at the age of 15.

His cause for beatification was opened in 1999 and on 21 January Pope Francis declared the boy "venerable", having lived a life of "heroic virtue".

Canzii's younger brother, Pietro, moved to the United States in 1941 and works as a tailor. Before he died in 2013, at the age of 90, he spoke in 2012 to the Catholic Review of the Archdiocese of Baltimore about his extraordinary older brother.

“He was a good, good guy,” she said. “I know he was a saint. I know his day will come. "

Pietro Canzi, who was 12 when his brother died, said that Pasqualino "always gave me good advice."