Clelia Merloni

Life

Clelia Merloni was born on 10 March 1861 in Forlì to Gioacchino Merloni and Teresa Brandinelli. She was baptized mere hours after her birth in the diocesan cathedral of Santa Croce from Bishop Pietro Paolo Trucchi.

Merloni's mother died in 1864 and her maternal grandmother became her guardian. Her father remarried in 1866 to Maria Giovanna Boeri and both her grandmother and stepmother did their best to instill religious values and a love of God in her. Her father became far too engrossed in his work and his rising socio-economic status and this led to him exiting the faith and becoming instead an anti-clerical Freemason.

Despite her frail health her father sought to provide her with the best education that was possible to attain in order to prepare her for following him in his business. She attended a private school in her town where she learnt basic skills such as reading and mathematics while also learning sewing and piano skills.

Merloni began to demonstrate signs that her father's business ambitions were not intended for her and due to conflict of this nature her father began to grow suspicious of Merloni's grandmother and the things she was attempting to instill in his daughter – it led to Merloni's grandmother being forced out of the house. The situation became aggravated when marriage struggles saw Merloni's stepmother leave the household to live with other relatives. She often fled to her room to do penance for her father's misdeeds and wore a pebble in her shoe to offer her sufferings for her father's withdrawal from the faith. The death of her father in 1865 – who reconciled to the faith before his death – saw his estate left to Merloni.

Merloni later joined the Figlie di Santa Maria della Divina Provvidenza – the order that Saint Luigi Guanella founded – and while there amongst the congregation in Como realized a call to form an order that would be devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. She founded that order – on 30 May 1894 – in Viareggio. She had left for Viareggio with her friend Elisa Penderzini while a third friend Giuseppina D'Ingenheim joined them a few weeks later before she founded her order.

In 1896 a financial disaster – due to her dishonest financial administrator – bought about great humiliation on the order which in turn led to public opinion turning against them. Merloni was soon told that her life was in danger and was advised to leave Viareggio for elsewhere – she sought refuge with the order based in Broni.

It was to her benefit that she later met the Bishop of Piacenza Blessed Giovanni Battista Scalabrini and on 10 June 1900 the latter granted diocesan approval to Merloni's order and approved its Rule of Life. Also on 10 June 1900 the bishop accepted the profession of Merloni into her own order and the profession of ten other religious. The seat of the order then moved to Scalabrini's diocese of Piacenza. Scalabrini also desired that the congregation also extend to the foreign missions and on 10 August 1900 six of the religious departed from Genoa to São Paulo in Brazil. Four more left in October 1900 for Santa Felicidade in Paranà also in Brazil while six more sailed on 16 June 1902 from Genoa on the British ship "The Vancouver" for Boston to aid the Missionaries of Saint Charles Borromeo. In 1903 there were 30 houses with 200 sisters.

Scalabrini's death in 1905 led to the motherhouse being transferred to Alessandria and also saw the decline of Merloni's good standing amongst the congregation. In 1911 the Vatican removed her from the leadership and named as Superior General Marcellina Vigano. She withdrew from the public due to this and in 1916 both requested and received a dispensation that would release her from her religious vows. During her exile Pope Benedict XV granted the decree of praise of the order on 17 July 1921. On 28 February 1928 she requested permission to renter the congregation and on 7 March 1928 was welcomed at the motherhouse in Rome where the order was now based since 1916. Vigano issued a circular letter that read: "Our most ardent desires have finally been fulfilled! ... Our beloved Mother Foundress is once again with us all of the seventh of this month. The Sacred Heart has restored her health so that she may now enjoy here in the motherhouse, surrounded by the love of her daughters, that peace and quiet which she needs so much, after so many trials and sorrows".

Merloni died on 21 November 1930 and she was buried at Campo Verano but was later exhumed and found intact in 1945. Her remains were then transferred to the motherhouse of the order. The order itself now has 1200 members in nations such as Taiwan and Switzerland in 195 houses. Her order received full papal approval from Pope Pius XI on 24 March 1931 while Pope Pius XII approved the constitutions of the congregation on 17 October 1941.

Beatification process

The beatification process opened in the Diocese of Rome after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints under Pope John Paul II – on 18 May 1990 – granted the official "nihil obstat" ('nothing against') to the cause which also conferred the title of Servant of God upon the late religious. Cardinal Ugo Poletti inaugurated the diocesan process on 18 June 1990 while Cardinal Camillo Ruini closed the process on 1 April 1998; the C.C.S. validated the process on 7 August 1999 and appointed a relator for the cause on 24 September 1999.

The postulation submitted the Positio to the C.C.S. on 12 November 2014 while historians met to discuss and approve the cause in 2015. The consulting theologians to the C.C.S. approved the cause on 25 October 2015. The C.C.S. approved the cause on 13 December 2016 and the confirmation of her heroic virtue allowed for Pope Francis to name her as Venerable.

The process for the investigation of an alleged miracle attributed to her concluded on 11 April 2011 in the place of its origin.

The current postulator assigned to the cause is Dr. Andrea Ambrosi. The first and previous postulator was the Franciscan Luca M. DeRosa.