Three fountains: notes on the activity of the visionary Bruno Cornacchiola

Tre Fontane: Notes on the visionary's activity.

Although the analysis of Bruno Cornacchiola's personal activity is not within the limits and interests of this study, it is useful to mention what he has done in relation to his visionary condition, for the purpose of a broader understanding of the Tre Fontane phenomenon.
In the years immediately following the apparition, his presence in the cave was almost constant, but there was no initiative of his to promote the cult of the Virgin of Revelation, in accordance with what the ecclesiastical authority ordered him to do.
The newspapers had made him a very popular character, highlighting the reversal that had occurred in his existence and highlighting the contrast between his previous and current life, resulting in the end a petty individual undeservedly made the object of divine favor.
Undoubtedly its most deprecated characteristic was that of having been part of the "Adventist sect" and of having been a "persecutor of the Church".
The bellhop of the Atac, who still lived for many years in a basement in the Appio district, felt invested with a mission to carry out with the impetuosity of the neophyte. Its first realization was the work a catechetical association that has been changing its aims and structures over the years.
This is how Cornacchiola himself describes it to card. Traglia in 1956:
In September 1947, that is six months after my conversion, I listened to the speech that the Holy Father gave to the men of the ACI and I was struck by some phrases that encouraged me to do what I already thought I would do, after the apparition, an organization Catechistics, for the conversion of the Communists and Protestants. In fact, on April 12, 1948, with the help of God and the dear Virgin, I formed the Statute for the organization, which I called SACRED.

Its diffusion took place above all in some villages of Rome, particularly in that of Montesecco, an agglomeration of recent formation and characterized by widespread poverty and illiteracy. The ecclesiastical assistant was Msgr. Castolo Ghezzi, of the Apostolic Elemosineria, whose devotion to the Madonna delle Tre Fontane was not appreciated by ecclesiastical authority. In fact he was ordered several times not to go to the cave of the apparition and not to have any relationship with the seer and the SACRI, under penalty of losing the chaplaincy of which he was the owner. They are significant examples of the difficult relationship between Cornacchiola and the ecclesial authorities, who would have preferred a greater concealment, irreconcilable of the rest with the commitment he had chosen. Of different genesis was the activity of witness of his conversion, to which he was called by the bishops of numerous dioceses, even outside of Italy. It is to be believed that Pius XII was not against it, although this cannot be documented.
Evidently the appearance of the Three Fountains had not remained without widespread consent, especially when this could be expressed without directly engaging the magisterium of the Church. According to what the visionary told some years later, on the occasion of the delivery of the dagger to Pope Pacelli, he would have received a solemn investiture regarding his activity as a traveling apostle of Catholicism:
... Your Holiness, tomorrow I will go to the red Emilia. The bishops from there invited me to take a religious propaganda tour. I must speak of the mercy of God, which was manifested to me through the Blessed Virgin. - Very well! I'm happy! Go with my blessing in the little Italian Russia! -

Numerous therefore the bishops who believed in the appearance occurred at the Three Fountains and also in the ability of the Roman deliveryman to benefit the spiritual life of those to whom he addressed with his speeches.
Some of them even cultivated a certain familiarity with Cornacchiola, binding themselves to him through small, but significant gestures. Among these, the then Archbishop of Ravenna Giacomo Lercaro, who wrote to the visionary in April 1951:
I must thank you still so much for the pleasure that Tomi gives to administering the two great sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation to little Gianfranco and for the joy I had in finding myself with them and especially in taking me with them to the cave of the apparition. Tell Gianfranco that you pray to Our Lady so much for me: now he has a great debt with me, having given him the Holy Spirit.

Then there is the bishop of Ales Antonio Tedde, who is perhaps the religious who most clearly testified to his adhesion to the Roman apparition. He had a church dedicated to the Virgin of Revelation erected in San Gavino, writing a pastoral letter on the occasion of its inauguration in 1967:
With deep joy and emotion as Father and Pastor of the Diocese, we inform you that our beloved Diocese has the privilege of having the first Church dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin with the title of "Virgin of Revelation"

Cornacchiola was often invited to talk about his conversion, capable of attracting people's interest and curiosity.
His public confessions were several thousand, carried out mainly in the province and on the occasion of Marian holidays. The account of the experience of the Three Fountains, of which the content of the message was silent, constituted in itself an effective reminder for those who were indifferent or hostile to Catholicism, as well as the transmission of a tangible experience of the sacred, which should have strengthened the faith of the present:
Brethren, I have not said this to you against one another; separate brothers should seek better education and return to the Church [..]. I tell you with all my heart and keep it in memory when they talk to you, ask if they know these three white points, these three points that unite heaven and earth: the Eucharist, the Immaculate Conception and the Pope.

In the general atmosphere of the crusade in support of Christian civilization, the words of the seer of the Three Fountains were to help close the ranks around the Catholic Church, sheltering it from what were considered the opponents of the moment: atheist communism and Protestant propaganda:
The conference of Mr. Cornacchiola, I am sure, did good, in fact the secretary of the Communist priest gave up the party by giving me the card and asking to join the ranks of the coupons, from which he had left ten years before ... The speeches of the seer, who was not highly educated, they were not violent, their pedagogical value being concentrated in the story of his life:
From 19 to 20,30 pm yesterday in a classroom of the Sacramentine nuns, the tram driver Cornacchiola Bruno held a conference on the theme "The Truth". The speaker, after recalling his Protestant past, narrated the apparition of the Madonna which took place three years ago in the locality of Tre Fontane. 400 people attended. No accidents.

Cornacchiola was invited, as seen, also by religious institutes, but most of the confessions were held in the town squares, having been forbidden to speak in consecrated places. From the analysis of the hundreds of letters of request for a conference of the visionary, however, it emerges that most of the reasons given concern the mere increase in devotion to the Madonna, of which Cornacchiola was considered an apostle. Among the bishops most concerned about the spread of Protestantism, those of the dioceses of Trani, Ivrea, Benevento, Teggiano, Sessa Aurunca, L'Aquila and Modigliana are noted:
There are three places where I would like to hear his word: here in Modigliana, where the Sons of Jehovah and the Adventists make propaganda; in Dovadola, where for many years they have been Waldensian families; and in Marradi, the nerve center between Romagna and Tuscany, where there have also been attempts at Protestant propaganda.

The reports on the clairvoyant's speeches, which were promptly sent to the pope, often show Cornacchiola's believed ability to produce spiritual benefits in the audience, such as recovering faith or acquiring some Christian virtues.
A young man, for example, who went to the Three Fountains after receiving confirmation, writes on the Gold Book of his conversion "from atheistic materialism, through the intercession of the Virgin of Revelation and through the Catechetical word of the apostle Mariano Bruno Cornacchiola".
The visionary's activity was sometimes taken up by the newspapers, especially the local ones, who spoke positively about it. A German Capuchin publishes in Germany a confession of the seer held in Assisi in December 1955, depicting the tram driver as a heated Communist returned to the truth:
It is this innigster Wunsch, since an seinem Bekenntnis vielen die Augen iber die wirklichen Ziele un die ungeheuere Gefahr des Kommunismus, dem er selber long Jahre fanatisch ergeben war, aufgehen miichten. Alle aber sollen “den Anruf der heiligsten Jungfrau und den letzten Ruf der Barmherzigkeit Gottes hòren.

The itinerant witness was an activity in which the seer of the Tre Fontane committed the rest of his existence, a tiring and never profitable work, but conducted with the honesty of those who were close to Heaven.
Lastly, it is necessary to consider the election of the ATAC bellhop as city councilor in the administrative elections in Rome in 1952, which seems to be in contrast with a certain iconography of the seer, who would like him to be extraneous to temporal matters.
According to what was reported by Bruno Cornacchiola, it would have been the lawyer Giuseppe Sales, president of the tramway company and political secretary of the Roman AD, to propose the electoral adventure.
The pope was asked if it would be better to «put Mr. Bruno Cornacchiola "and Pius XII replied" to question Fr. Rotondi, who evidently was not against it. The concerns of Father Lombardi and of the pope himself are known, about the concrete possibility of having a communist mayor in Rome, and the use of this non-technical candidacy, should have served to gather the preferences of the devotees of the Tre Fontane, rather than to guarantee the presence of a Christian on the Capitol.
From some police reports, it appears that the ATAC bellboy did some rallies together with the best known Enrico Medi:
Today a rally was held at Largo Massimo by the DC in the presence of 8000 people, Honorable Medi speaker and mr. Cornacchiola Bruno.

On the «Popolo» of May 16, it was presented to the voters as follows:
… A delivery man from Atac, where he entered as a labor cleaner in 1939. He had a very tormented youth, averse to the Catholic religion, in 1942 he embraced Protestantism, which appointed him Director of Missionary Youth. Strengthened by the negative experience in this field of activity, he gradually matured the inner turmoil, which led him decidedly to embrace Catholicism, of which he became a devoted and passionate militant. His word is desired in many parts of Italy and he lavishes it with constant dedication and generosity. In Campidoglio he will represent the thousands of Atac workers worthily.

Cornacchiola was eventually sixteenth among the Christian Democrat candidates, well below the former Roma player Amadei:
Amadei came second, with 17231 preferences, that is, immediately after the mayor Rebecchini, who collected 59987; Cornacchiola, on the other hand, was sixteenth with only 5383 votes in preference, confirming that, all things considered and fortunately, in this field sports fury is more important than religious fury. Of course the two city councilors were like two meteors in the political and administrative sky of Rome. [...] Cornacchiola went back to sit at his post as a messenger from the Atac ...

And he also returned to his activity as a witness to the events of the Tre Fontane and to the SACRI catechist association, which in 1972 was erected in a moral institution.