Arcangelo Tadini

In Botticino Sera, Arcangelo Tadini committed himself to addressing the miseries brought about by industrialization. In 1893, he founded a Workers' Mutual Aid Society (Società Operaia di Mutuo Soccorso) intended to guarantee workers support in the event of illness, accident, disability, or old age. Stimulated by the encyclical Rerum novarum of Leo XIII (1891), he had a spinning mill (filanda) built, using his family inheritance, which was completed around 1898, in order to provide work and accommodate young female workers, for whom he arranged housing in a nearby villa. To accompany them spiritually and humanely in their workplace, he founded in 1900 the Congregation of the Worker Sisters of the Holy House of Nazareth (Suore Operaie della Santa Casa di Nazareth). The institute, one of the first female congregations explicitly dedicated to manual labor and its sanctification, sends its religious sisters to share the daily lives of workers in factories, in the light of the figure of Jesus the worker in Nazareth.

The holiness of Arcangelo Tadini is characterized by the close union between contemplation and action. A man of prayer, he spent, according to testimonies, long hours before the Eucharist, the source of his commitment to the service of workers. His charity was expressed through concrete attention to workers, to their dignity and their social condition, in an era marked by tensions between capitalism and socialism. During the canonization, Benedict XVI emphasized how Tadini's intuition was "prophetic" and "relevant," recalling that it is only through constant communion with Christ in the Eucharist that one can bring "the leaven of the Gospel" into the various activities of work. His daily life, shared with his parish for a quarter of a century, and his desire to remain with his own people testify to a humble, persevering, and selfless fidelity, the foundation of his reputation for holiness.

The beatification process for Arcangelo Tadini concluded on October 3, 1999, when Pope John Paul II proclaimed him blessed; the miracle accepted for this stage was the healing of a religious sister, Sister Carmela Berardi. The canonization was celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI on April 26, 2009, in Saint Peter's Square, during a ceremony that also raised Bernardo Tolomei, Nuno de Santa Maria Álvares Pereira, Gertrude Comensoli, and Caterina Volpicelli to the honors of the altar. The miracle approved for the canonization concerned a couple, Roberto Marazzi and Elisabetta Fostini, who, after several years of infertility, were able to conceive children. Although he died on May 20, 1912, the liturgical memorial of Saint Arcangelo Tadini is fixed on May 21, notably in the Diocese of Brescia and the congregation he founded.

The spiritual legacy of Arcangelo Tadini continues primarily through the congregation of the Worker Sisters of the Holy House of Nazareth, whose motherhouse remains linked to Botticino, near Brescia, and which subsequently spread beyond Italy. A pioneering figure of the apostolate in the world of work, Tadini is often presented as a precursor of a worker pastoral care inspired by the social doctrine of the nascent Church, in particular the encyclical Rerum novarum. His example, highlighted by Benedict XVI during his canonization as particularly "relevant" in times of economic crisis, continues to inspire a spirituality of work centered on the figure of Jesus the worker in Nazareth. Due to the infirmity that marked him, he is sometimes invoked as the patron of people suffering from lameness. His remains and his memory are venerated in Botticino, which has become a place of worship and pilgrimage linked to his work.