Francesco Maria Greco

Francesco Maria Greco was born on 26 July 1857 in Acri, in Calabria, then part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. He was the son of Francesco Paolo Greco and Maria Giuseppa Piccaro and was baptized on the day of his birth. A twin brother, Raffaele, died in infancy. He grew up in a Catholic family in the interior of Calabria, a region that in the later nineteenth century was marked by poverty, limited schooling, and emigration. He received First Communion and Confirmation as a child and adolescent and entered the seminary of Cosenza in 1872. After the usual course of studies he was ordained a priest on 17 December 1881 for the Archdiocese of Cosenza.

As a priest Greco worked in and around his native Acri, combining parish ministry with a strong emphasis on catechesis and on the education of the poor, especially girls, for whom schools were scarce. He promoted pious associations dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and became known as a preacher and confessor. He was later named an honorary canon. His work belonged to the social and religious landscape of post-unification southern Italy, where clergy and new institutes often tried to supply elementary instruction and charity that the state and older institutions did not provide.

On 21 November 1894, together with Rachele De Vincenti (in religion Maria Teresa of the Sacred Hearts), he founded the Congregation of the Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts (Piccole Operaie dei Sacri Cuori). The sisters devoted themselves to the education of children, catechetical instruction, and care of the sick and abandoned. Greco remained a diocesan priest and never became a religious himself; he served as founder, spiritual director, and guide of the institute, which obtained diocesan and later pontifical recognition and spread from Acri to other parts of Italy and abroad. He also attempted a male branch of Little Workers, which did not last. Through the congregation he was able to sustain schools, orphanages, and workshops in Calabria.

Greco spent his whole priestly life in his native region and died in Acri on 13 January 1931. A cult of holiness persisted among the faithful and the sisters of his congregation. A cause for beatification was introduced in the Archdiocese of Cosenza. Pope Benedict XVI recognized his heroic virtues and declared him Venerable. Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to his intercession, and Greco was beatified on 21 May 2016 in Cosenza, with Cardinal Angelo Amato presiding as papal representative. His liturgical memorial is 13 January. He has not been canonized.