Giovanni Calabria

The work of Giovanni Calabria was born on November 26, 1907, when he opened the Casa Buoni Fanciulli (House of Good Children) in Verona, on Vicolo Case Rotte, intended to take in and educate poor and abandoned children. The institution was transferred in 1908 to Via San Zeno in Monte, which became the motherhouse. Around this work gathered a fraternity of priests and brothers that the Bishop of Verona, Cardinal Girolamo Cardinale, erected on February 11, 1932, as a congregation of diocesan right under the name of Poor Servants of Divine Providence (Poveri Servi della Divina Provvidenza). The congregation received pontifical approval on April 25, 1949. In parallel, Calabria founded a female branch, the Poor Servants of Divine Providence, approved as a diocesan institute on March 25, 1952. As early as 1934, he sent brothers to India, to Vijayawada, giving his work a missionary dimension. During the Nazi-Fascist occupation, he hid persecuted Jews, among whom was a female doctor welcomed into his female community.

The spirituality of Giovanni Calabria is summed up in his master conviction: to show the world that divine Providence exists and that God is not a stranger, but a Father. He founded his work on the evangelical abandonment 'seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,' refusing to build up financial reserves in order to rely solely on Providence. This trust is accompanied by concrete charity toward the most destitute, the sick, and the marginalized. A man of dialogue, he maintained fraternal relations with Protestants, Orthodox, and Jews; he corresponded in particular, in Latin, with the English writer C. S. Lewis, who wrote to him starting in September 1947 after reading the Italian translation of The Screwtape Letters. His reputation for holiness, based on humility, the spirit of poverty, and the total gift of self, spread during his lifetime. On the eve of his death, he offered his life to the Lord for Pope Pius XII, who was then gravely ill.

The process for the recognition of the holiness of Giovanni Calabria concluded under the pontificate of John Paul II. A first miracle attributed to his intercession was recognized, paving the way for his beatification, celebrated by the Pope in Verona on April 17, 1988. The recognition of a second miracle allowed for his canonization, proclaimed by John Paul II in Rome on April 18, 1999. His liturgical feast is set for December 4, the anniversary of his death. According to the tradition reported by his congregation and official sources, Pope Pius XII, unaware of the offering that Calabria had made of his own life for him, hailed him in a telegram of condolences addressed to the congregation as a "champion of evangelical charity." The cause was instructed from Verona, where the remains of the founder rest, venerated at the motherhouse of San Zeno in Monte.

The legacy of Giovanni Calabria continues through the two congregations he founded, the Poor Servants and the Poor Servants of Divine Providence, which carry on his charism of service to poor children, the sick, and the marginalized. Gathered around the Veronese motherhouse of San Zeno in Monte, his work extended beyond Italy, starting in 1934 toward India, and then to other countries. The hospital institution that bears his name today in Negrar, near Verona, testifies to the posterity of his intuition in the service of the sick. His Latin correspondence with C. S. Lewis, published after his death, made his spiritual figure known in the English-speaking world and continues to draw attention to his message of Christian unity and trust in God the Father. His memory remains particularly alive in the diocese of Verona, of which he remains one of the great figures of charity of the 20th century.