Alessandro Nottegar

In 1978, Alessandro Nottegar, his wife, and their first two daughters settled in Brazil as lay missionaries. He began by working at the hospital built by the congregation of the Poor Servants of Divine Providence (Don Calabria) in Porto Alegre. Subsequently, the family moved to the state of Rondônia, where Alessandro took charge of the leper colony in Porto Velho. In extremely precarious conditions, he cared for the leprosy patients with immense tenderness, kneeling to clean their wounds and seeing in them the face of the suffering Christ. To boost the patients' morale, he also organized sports activities, such as volleyball and football matches. It was in Brazil that their third daughter, Miriam, was born. The family then moved to the diocese of Rio Branco, in Plácido de Castro, where Alessandro worked as a general practitioner and taught the inhabitants how to prepare natural remedies.

In 1982, the health of one of their daughters, Chiara, who had contracted malaria, as well as the desire to see their parents again, forced the Nottegar family to return to Italy. Alessandro found a job at the analysis laboratory of the San Bonifacio hospital, near Verona. However, he felt a pressing call to sell everything to follow the Lord and found a community of evangelical life. He sold the land inherited from his father and deposited the money into an account dedicated to Mary, Queen of Peace. Through Providence, he acquired a large house on the hills of Verona (Torricelle). On August 15, 1986, he officially founded the Regina Pacis (Queen of Peace) Community there, dedicated to prayer, evangelization, and service to the poor.

On September 19, 1986, barely a month after the foundation of the community, Alessandro Nottegar died suddenly of a heart attack in Verona, at the age of 42, while returning from his work at the hospital.

The reputation of holiness of Alessandro Nottegar spread rapidly after his death, both in Italy and in Brazil. The cause for beatification and canonization was officially opened at the diocesan level in Verona on May 14, 2007. The diocesan inquiry, which collected numerous testimonies and documents regarding his life, concluded on June 6, 2009. The legal validity of this inquiry was recognized by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on April 23, 2013. The Positio, which synthesizes the heroic virtues of the Servant of God, was examined by theological consultants on January 14, 2016, and subsequently by the cardinals and bishops of the Congregation on April 4, 2017, receiving a unanimously favorable opinion at each stage.

On May 4, 2017, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of the decree recognizing the heroic virtues of Alessandro Nottegar, thereby granting him the title of Venerable.

However, the history of his cause took a major turn in 2021. Following a canonical visitation and an in-depth investigation revealing serious institutional shortcomings, governance problems, and a lack of maturity in the founding charism, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life pronounced, by a decree dated July 24, 2021, approved by Pope Francis, the dissolution and suppression of the Regina Pacis Community. As a consequence of this suppression, the cause for the beatification of Alessandro Nottegar was officially suspended in August 2021.

The spirituality of Alessandro Nottegar rests on the deep conviction that holiness is not reserved for religious, but is fully accessible to laypeople and married couples through the duties of their state. His daily life was punctuated by intense prayer, daily Mass, Eucharistic adoration, frequent confession, and a deep Marian devotion.

His spiritual legacy is summarized in the words he addressed to his daughters on September 15, 1986, four days before his death: "My children, I leave you as an inheritance neither lands, nor apartments, nor bank accounts. The inheritance I leave you is the total choice of the Gospel...". Although the community he founded was dissolved by Church authority due to subsequent deviations, the figure of Alessandro Nottegar remains that of an exemplary doctor, a loving husband, and a father entirely given to God and to the poorest.