Luigi Maria Olivares

Who they were

Born at Corbetta near Milan on 18 October 1873, the fourth of fifteen children, Luigi Olivares studied and was ordained a priest in Milan, then served eight years as vice-rector of the archiepiscopal college of Saronno before Cardinal Ferrari finally allowed him to join the Salesians in 1904. After further studies he taught moral theology and sociology, then in 1910 was sent as parish priest to Rome's rundown Testaccio quarter, where his kindness visibly transformed the neighbourhood; he heard confessions almost without a break and preached several times a day.

In 1916 Pope Benedict XV made him bishop of Sutri and Nepi, a post he held for 26 years, living by a personal rule of loving his diocese "as a bride" and avoiding luxury. He died away from his diocese on 19 May 1943, while preaching a retreat to schoolboys in Pordenone, at the age of seventy, and was declared Venerable on 20 December 2004.

The miracles

The Church has not yet approved a miracle in this cause.

Why that counted as sanctity

Salesian parish priest of Rome's Testaccio quarter and then bishop of Sutri and Nepi for 26 years; declared Venerable 20 December 2004.