Zeno Saltini

Zeno Saltini (30 August 1900 – 15 January 1981) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Nomadelfia movement.

Zeno Saltini was born in Fossoli in 1900 as the ninth of twelve children to the rich landowners Cesare Saltini and Filomena Rigi.

His older sister was Maria Anna Saltini Testi, who founded a religious order and later was proclaimed as venerable.

Three of his brothers would later enter the religious life.

In 1914 he decided to cease his studies and refused to return to school because he believed that he had learnt subjects of little relevance to life.

He therefore started to work on his parents' land and soon became acquainted with the miseries and the aspirations of fellow farmworkers and landowners.

This proved to later be the basis for his life going forward.

He later was conscripted into the national service in 1917 during World War I and was posted in Florence.

In 1920 he had a profound encounter with an anarchist (also a fellow soldier whom he knew) who in the presence of other soldiers sustained that Jesus Christ and the Church were little more than obstacles to human progress moving forward.

Saltini attempted to sustain the complete opposite but realized his educated opponent had the support of most of the gathered soldiers so decided to retreat from the debate before it worsened.

This incident humiliated Saltini who locked himself in a room and wept.

He reflected upon this encounter and declared: "I want to be neither a servant nor a master" in the aim that he would change civilization beginning with himself.

From that point on he decided to resume his studies and entered into a law course at the college in Milan where he also continued to participate in apostolic activities such as working alongside Azione Cattolica.

Saltini also ended up in Verona at some stage alongside the priest Saint Giovanni Calabria whom he befriended while he also got to know the Bishop of Carpi Giovanni Pranzini.

He completed his degree in 1929 and set himself on new work in which he aimed to aid those people who were unable to afford adequate legal services.

But this too challenged Saltini who soon began to realize his true mission in life was to prevent people from falling into misfortune.

He therefore decided to become a priest in 1930.

Saltini returned to his alma mater where he underwent theological studies; both Calabria and Pranzini encouraged Saltini in his vocation and aspirations.

He received his ordination to the priesthood on 4 January 1931 in the Carpi Cathedral from Bishop Pranzini.

He celebrated his first Mass on 6 January at the Carpi Cathedral and at that Mass took Danilo (aged seventeen) as his spiritual son (Danilo had just been released from prison and had nowhere to go).

That child served Saltini at the Mass as his altar server.

Saltini's first pastoral assignment was as a vice-parish priest in San Giacomo Roncole near Mirandola.

It was there that he started to understand the importance of the cinema as a medium for promoting the Christian message and so opened a cinema there for the people.

In 1941 he started to welcome abandoned children as his own and to that end founded the "Little Apostles" movement in order to care for poor and abandoned children.

He also swore that he would never open a college.

In 1941 a teenage girl named Irene Bertoni (aged eighteen) ran from home and asked Saltini if she could become the 'mother' of the Little Apostles.

He conferred with and received approval from his bishop which allowed for Saltini to entrust the children to her care.

It was not long before other women (the first being Maria Luisa Amadei) joined Irene and became known as the "mothers of vocation".

In addition other priests joined Saltini and lived together as communitarian priests.

He was a staunch anti-Fascist who opposed their racial laws in the lead up to and during World War II.

Saltini found a kindred spirit in the new Bishop of Carpi (and Capuchin friar) Vigilio Federico Dalla Zuanna who was supportive of Saltini's work.

Upon Benito Mussolini's dismissal the Carabinieri arrested Saltino for spreading religious leaflets though released him after a few hours in fear of a popular uprising.

It was following the armistice in 1943 that he travelled south with some of his children following him in order to escape arrest or potential deportation.

He travelled first through Fossacesia in Chieti and then through Rome (where he spent a great deal of time) and then through to Campania.

But back in San Giacomo Roncole were those who disliked Saltini and his work and attempted to ensure its dissolution.

He also had set up a war orphans refuge at the old Fossoli di Carpi concentration camp in the Emilia-Romagna region but this was closed in 1952 after ecclesial authorities ordered his departure and the camp's closure.

The movement moved to Grosseto after a countess donated land to them to use and Saltini's communal group flourished and grew in numbers despite the Church's severe reservations regarding Saltini's work.

This Friction led in 1953 to him leaving the priesthood though he was later restored in 1962.

Future outlooks on Nomadelfia mellowed over time and even earned papal support from Pope John Paul II towards the end of Saltini's life.

His beatification process opened in 2009 after the Tuscan Episcopal Conference issued their assent to the cause's launch; a formal edict issued within the next fortnight launched the cause in Grosseto.