Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
by Fabio Beretta
Rome (Agenzia Fides) - "There is someone who loves you even before you deserve it." Disobeying the orders of the papal legate, Father Giovanni Merlini did not condemn or attack anyone in his homilies. Not even the bandits who, with their misdeeds, disturbed the order and internal peace of the Papal State.
According to him, violent repression was not the right way to resolve the problems of the lands of central Italy that had seen the invasion of Napoleonic French troops. His words also pierced like a bullet the hearts of the hardened criminals who sowed terror in the countryside. Thus, some bandits, through Father Giovanni, wrote a letter to the Pope asking for forgiveness.
Exactly two centuries after writing this letter, dated 1825, Father Giovanni Merlini, missionary of the Precious Blood, is proclaimed blessed. The beatification liturgy, which will be presided over on Sunday, January 12 by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, will not take place in Spoleto, his hometown, nor in Albano, a town in the Castelli Romani where Father Merlini lived, but in the Cathedral of Rome, the Lateran, where he will be elevated to the honors of the altars. A missionary in the lands of the Papal States, he was accused several times of collusion with bandits and of disobedience to the Church he served. He was also the advisor to a Pope, Blessed Pius IX.
And his holiness lies precisely in his way of living in the world with what Father Valerio Volpi, director of the Pastoral Office for Youth and Vocations of the Italian Province of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, co-author of the latest biography of Father Merlini, defines in an interview with Fides as "a disconcerting inner freedom".
"In a Church that sometimes pursues pastoral success, that questions itself saying: if people don't come, we fail, the example of Father Giovanni is enlightening. He trusted that God would do the rest", adds Father Valerio, recalling the words that Blessed Merlini addressed to his spiritual daughter, Maria de Mattias, today a saint: "You worry about many things, I worry only about the will of God. Always remember that we are channels and not sources".
The source of his work "is all there". And this freedom of action led him to embark on great projects, sometimes crazy, such as telling the Pope, who had then left Rome because of the insurrection of 1848: "Your Holiness, if you want to return to Rome, extend the feast of the Precious Blood to the entire universal Church. If you do so, you will have the possibility of returning to Rome before the feast (at the time fixed on July 1, ed.). Pius IX did not make a vow but a simple promise", recounts Father Valerio. And in fact, on June 30, on the eve of the feast of the Precious Blood, the battle that, de facto, sanctioned the end of the Roman Republic took place. On 10 August 1849, faithful to the promise made in Gaeta, Pius IX issued the bull Redempti sumus with which the feast of the Precious Blood was extended to the entire Church, fixing it on the first Sunday of July (today it has been merged with the solemnity of Corpus Christi, ed.).
Father Merlini, the 'biographer' continues, acted in this way because he was convinced that it was God's will. If God wanted it that way, he would have had the means and ways to carry out his will”. This way of doing things also won over Pius IX.
"Father Merlini's reputation as a spiritual director preceded him. Like all the initiatives he took in the context of his mission to "retransmit the love of God in the lands of the Papal States, where large sections of the population live," explains Father Valerio. "They did not need to know Jesus by name. Everyone knew who he was and what he had done. What they lacked was to experience that this Jesus loved them so much that he gave his life for each one of them, even if they were bandits or poor people."
And Merlini was listened to by these people because, as Father Volpi points out, "he used dialogue." With Saint Gaspare del Bufalo, he undertook the construction of several mission houses in the territories of the Papal States. Saint Gaspare chose Father Merlini because he was very practical and because he was an architect. Many of these houses were built outside the inhabited areas to facilitate the encounter and dialogue with the bandits. Father Giovanni spoke to them and the bandits listened to him. Often, in the evening, when everyone returned to the camps after working in the countryside, he offered water to everyone, without distinction. He never used an armed escort”.
And it was precisely this way of doing things that led Pius IX to want him as an advisor. And the Pope, in order to listen to him, did not bring him to Rome: “It was the Pontiff who went to Albano to speak to Father Giovanni. It was not unusual for the Pope to arrive while he was in the chicken coop feeding the animals. Tasks that, in the congregation, certainly did not belong to a high-ranking member”, explains Father Valerio to Fides. Merlini, in fact, was elected third Moderator General of the Congregation of the Precious Blood in 1847, a position he held until his death. Under his leadership, the Congregation founded by Saint Gaspar del Bufalo took on the structural aspect that we know today.
Father Merlini, a missionary in the lands of the Pope, is also the first blessed of the Jubilee 2025, dedicated to the theme of hope. This too, concludes Father Valerio Volpi, “is a strong message. As Christians, we sometimes take ourselves a little for granted, while Father Giovanni tells us that we must not take anything for granted. Father Giovanni also helps us to experience Rome, a city with a thousand-year-old tradition of faith, through his desire to follow God’s will. He helps us to recognize that there is no situation in which we live where God cannot teach us something.” (Agenzia Fides, 11/1/2025)
