Suggest an Edit — Alberto Marvelli

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Biography

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Alberto Marvelli was born on 21 March 1918 in Ferrara, in northern Italy, to Luigi Marvelli and Maria Mayr. He was the second of seven children in a household shaped by regular Catholic practice; his mother in particular fostered prayer and charity at home. In 1930 the family moved to Rimini, where his father worked and where Alberto would spend the rest of his life. As an adolescent he joined Catholic Action, the principal lay apostolate of the Italian Church, and remained an active member until his death. He formed a disciplined spiritual life that included daily Mass, Eucharistic adoration, the rosary, and reading of Scripture and the lives of the saints. Among the models who influenced Italian Catholic youth of his generation, and Marvelli himself, was Pier Giorgio Frassati, the Turin layman and Catholic Action member who had died in 1925.

He studied industrial engineering at the University of Bologna and obtained his degree in 1941. During his university years he continued to live in Rimini and to work with Catholic Action and with local youth apostolate, including catechesis and assistance at the Salesian oratory. When the Second World War reached the Adriatic, Rimini suffered repeated aerial bombardment and later German occupation. Marvelli devoted himself to civilian relief: he collected food and clothing, visited the displaced and the injured, and used his bicycle to carry aid through the ruined streets. Period accounts describe him giving away his own possessions to people in greater need. He also sought to help those exposed to arrest or deportation under the occupation.

After the liberation of Rimini he took part in civic reconstruction, serving on local committees concerned with housing and public assistance. He accepted candidacy for the Christian Democracy party in the municipal elections of 1946, regarding political service as an extension of Christian duty toward the common good. On 5 October 1946, while riding his bicycle, he was struck by a military truck and died of his injuries. He was twenty-eight years old. He was first buried in Rimini; his remains were later transferred to the Church of Sant'Agostino in that city.

The diocesan cause for his beatification was introduced in Rimini. After the usual processes, Pope John Paul II beatified Alberto Marvelli on 5 September 2004 at Loreto, during a gathering of Italian Catholic youth. The Church commemorates him on 5 October. He is remembered as a layman whose short life joined Eucharistic devotion, membership in Catholic Action, and practical charity amid war and reconstruction in twentieth-century Italy. He has not been canonized.

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