Riccardo Pampuri

After an internship with his physician uncle and a brief substitution in Vernate, Erminio Pampuri was appointed general practitioner (medico condotto) in Morimondo, near Milan, a position he held from 1921 to 1927. In Morimondo, he practiced his profession as a true priesthood of charity. Nicknamed by the population the "dottorino santo" (the little holy doctor) or the "dottor carità" (the doctor of charity), he treated the poor for free, often providing them himself with the necessary medicines, food, clothing, and money. Alongside his medical practice, he was actively involved in parish life: he founded the Catholic Action youth circle (of which he was the first president), created the "Pio X" parish musical band for young people, and assumed the role of secretary of the missionary commission. He was also a member of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and committed himself as a Franciscan tertiary under the name "Antonio." In 1927, driven by a deep desire for religious consecration and on the advice of his spiritual director, Father Riccardo Beretta, he decided to join the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God (the Fatebenefratelli). Despite his family's reluctance, he entered the novitiate in Milan on June 22, 1927. He received the religious habit in Brescia and pronounced his simple vows on October 24, 1928, under the name Brother Riccardo. He was then appointed director of the dental office at the Fatebenefratelli hospital in Brescia, a service mainly frequented by workers and the destitute. He gave himself there without counting the cost, combining high professional competence with deep charity and humility.

Brother Riccardo's health, already fragile, deteriorated rapidly starting at the end of 1929 due to a relapse of his wartime pleurisy, which degenerated into tuberculous bronchopneumonia. Faced with the gravity of his condition, he was transferred on April 18, 1930, from Brescia to the San Giuseppe Hospital of the Fatebenefratelli in Milan. He died there holily on May 1, 1930, at the age of 32. His funeral was celebrated in Trivolzio, where he was buried in the communal cemetery. Immediately, his tomb became a place of pilgrimage and popular devotion, with numerous graces and unexplained healings being attributed to his intercession. On May 16, 1951, his remains were exhumed and solemnly transferred under an altar of the parish church of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian in Trivolzio, where his body, which remained visible, is still venerated today.

The ordinary process for the cause of canonization of Riccardo Pampuri was opened on April 1, 1949, by Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster. On June 12, 1978, Pope Paul VI declared him Venerable, recognizing the heroic nature of his virtues. He was beatified on October 4, 1981, by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square. Two miracles were officially recognized for his beatification: 1. The instantaneous and lasting healing of Adeodato Comand, which occurred on May 18, 1952, in Gorizia, from acute generalized peritonitis. 2. The rapid and complete healing of Ferdinando Michelini, which occurred on September 16, 1959, in Milan, from acute generalized peritonitis with intestinal obstruction. He was solemnly canonized on November 1, 1989, by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica. The miracle accepted for his canonization was the healing that occurred on January 5, 1982, in Alcadozo (province of Albacete, Spain) of the young Manuel Cifuentes Rodenas, then 10 years old. The latter had severely injured his left eye with an almond tree branch, causing a deep corneal laceration that threatened to leave him blind. After his father placed an image of Blessed Riccardo Pampuri under the child's bandage while praying for his healing, the eye was found to be perfectly healthy and without a scar the following morning.

The spirituality of Saint Riccardo Pampuri rests on an intimate union with Christ through the Eucharist and a filial devotion to the Virgin Mary, whose rosary he recited several times a day. For him, medicine was not merely a scientific profession, but an extension of evangelical charity: treating the body of the sick was equivalent to touching the suffering body of Christ. He left a powerful spiritual maxim, written to his sister, a religious, in October 1928: "Have great desires, that is to say, the desire for great holiness, to do great works; always aim as high as you can to succeed in hitting the mark: but since you will not always be called to glorious actions, do also the small things, the least ones, with great love." His legacy is particularly vibrant in Trivolzio, sometimes nicknamed the "little Lourdes of the Po Valley" due to the constant influx of pilgrims. His memory is also honored by an annual pilgrimage on foot connecting Assago to Trivolzio, very popular in Italy and supported by the Communion and Liberation movement, whose founder, Father Luigi Giussani, held a deep devotion to the saintly physician. Saint Riccardo Pampuri is the patron saint of Trivolzio, as well as of doctors and nurses.