Resting place Pisa, Italy | Venerated in Roman Catholic Church | |
Died 14 November 1931, Kingdom of Italy | ||
Ludovico Coccapani (23 June 1849 – 14 November 1931) was an Italian Roman Catholic from the Archdiocese of Pisa and served as a teacher and as a member of the Secular Franciscan Order. Coccapani was also the President of the Conference of Saint Vincent de Paul in its Pisa division.
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His cause of canonization commenced in 1949 in a long and complex process that was blocked in 1966. It reopened several decades later and continues in Pisa at present. With the commencement of the cause he has been accorded with the title Servant of God.
Life
Ludovico Coccapani was born in Pisa on 23 June 1849 to bourgeois parents.
At the age of 25 he decided to devote his life to the poor and to that end discovered the charism of Saint Francis of Assisi. He felt that this was his true calling and decided to join the Secular Franciscan Order in 1874. At the same time he worked for the Saint Vincent de Paul organization based in Pisa. He also served as a teacher and he educated all children including those who had been abandoned and/or neglected.
Coccapani visited prisons and he frequented those places in order to reach out to the prisoners and to bring them a message of hope and to teach them of the messages of the Gospel while espousing the merciful love of Jesus Christ. Coccapani was devoted to the Eucharist and was an ardent devotee of the Blessed Mother. His confessor and close friend was the Cardinal Carlo Rossi and he had also met and worked with Blessed Giuseppe Toniolo. In 1914 he became the President of the Pisan detail of the Vicentian Conference and carried out the duties of the organization during World War I.
He died in Pisa in the evening of 14 November 1931 due to pneumonia. As per his will he was granted a simple funeral and buried in a simple grave. His remains were exhumed in December 2015 and placed back into his grave after examination and canonical inspection was completed.
Legacy
Coccapani's influence became widespread in Pisa and the surrounding areas and he earned the moniker of the "Knight of God". In the parish of Saint Francis there was a soup kitchen that was named after him following his death.
Beatification process
The canonization process commenced in 1949 in Pisa and lasted until 1966 at which point the cause was blocked. It remained in that state until 1989 when the Archbishop of Pisa Alessandro Plotti requested that it be reopened. The cause continued and was closed on 15 November 1996. The opening of the cause in 1949 granted Coccapani the posthumous title Servant of God.
The Congregation for the Causes of Saints – on 28 January 1997 – granted their formal approval to the cause with the declaration of "nihil obstat" (nothing against). The Congregation approved the closure of the cause while declaring that the diocesan process was indeed valid.
The next step in the cause is to compile the Positio for the Congregation to evaluate whether Coccapani exercised a life of heroic virtue.
The postulator assigned to the cause is Angelo Paleri, O.F.M. Conv.