Publicated on “Oremus Westminster Cathedral Magazine” December 2017
In 1945 Ronaldo Rivi, an Italian seminarian, was killed by communists because of their hatred for the Faith. ‘Tomorrow, one priest less’, said the local political commissioner of the Party. Rolando, who lived in a small town in the northern Italian province of Modena, is the Church’s first beatified seminarian. Born on 7 January 1931 in San Valentino di Castellarano, Reggio Emilia, to a deeply Catholic family, he discovered his vocation very early and entered the seminary when he was only 11 years old. At that time, all seminarians wore cassocks, and so did he. In Modena, partisan formations were mostly composed of communists, socialists and members of Partito d’Azione (a republican liberal-socialist party), and they were united by animosity toward fascists and an anti-Catholic spirit. Communist partisans, in particular, thought that the clergy could be an obstacle for their revolutionary project, and this fed their anticlericalism.
In June 1944, Nazi troops occupied the seminary, and so all the seminarians were sent home. Ronaldo returned to his home town of San Valentino, carrying his books with him to continue his studies there. Whilst there the young seminarian never stopped wearing his cassock, despite the rising climate of violence. When his parents suggested he refrain from wearing it for his own safety, he reportedly replied: ‘I study to be a priest, and these vestments are the sign that I belong to Jesus’. The situation grew more difficult; four priests were killed by the communist partisan brigades, and Fr Olinto Marzocchini, San Valentino’s parish priest and the boy’s spiritual father, was attacked and subsequently transferred to a more secure location.
Ronaldo split his days between service in the parish and his studies. On the morning of 10 April 1945, after serving Mass, the now 14 year-old took his books and went to the nearby woods, where he was accustomed to studying. Yet this time, he never returned. At noon, his parents, worried because he had not come back for lunch, went to the woods and found his books on the ground and a sheet of paper on which was written: ‘Do not search for him. He just came with us partisans for a while’. Kidnapped and stripped of his cassock, Ronaldo was imprisoned and tortured by partisans for three days. Some of them proposed to let him go, since he was only a youth. But the majority sentenced him to death, in order to have ‘one less future priest’. On 13 April, Ronaldo was taken to a forest outisde Modena. The partisans dug a grave and had him kneel on its edge. While he was praying, the young seminarian was killed by gunshots to the heart and head. His cassock was rolled into a ball, kicked around and then hung as a war trophy on the front door of a house.
Pope Francis named Ronaldo Rivi as a Blessed (Beatus) on 5 October 2013. As a martyr for the faith, a miracle was not needed for this proclamation. In his homily at the Beatification Mass, His Eminence Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Cause of Saints, declared that ‘human ideologies fall down, but the Gospel of love never goes down, because it is the Good News’. He also spoke of the ‘hyenas, fed with hate, looking for prey to bite and devour, who stripped Rivi of his vestments as Jesus’ executioners did’. ‘Those hyenas’, he continued, ‘forgot the commandments of the Lord’ and were ‘indoctrinated to fight Christianity, humiliate priests, kill the parish priests and destroy Catholic teaching’. The feast day of Bl Ronaldo Rivi is now kept on 13 April.
Shivu Giovanni Battista Fernando
The author is an Oratorian Brother studying in Rome.