Over 50,000 people gathered in Milan’s Piazza Duomo yesterday for the beatification of don Carlo Gnocchi [25.10.1902 – 28.2.1956]. Among those present were 15,000 alpini - the Italian Army’s élite mountain warfare soldiers – representing their predecessors whose chaplain don Carlo was during World War II. Pope Benedict, speaking from Rome, said that don Carlo had been “a true educator of children”.
Ordained at the age of 22, the young don Carlo wanted to be a military chaplain and while he was waiting to be accepted he encouraged the young men of his town to join the armed forces. When he witnessed the horrors of war for himself, first with the alpini in Albania and then on the Russian front, he understood the lasting damage wrought by war and the experience changed his life.
After the war, he travelled throughout Italy to visit the bereaved families of soldiers he had known, offering them words of comfort and sometimes taking them the last letters the men had written or some of their belongings. During this period he realised that many of the women and children now had no one to care for them and he encountered many children who had lost limbs when land mines had exploded in the Italian countryside. Having lost their fathers in the war, these children had no hope for the future, for schools and orphanages could not provide for their needs.
Without knowing where the money would come from, don Carlo decided that he was going to help the disabled children and he began by opening up his rectory to them. Slowly the money he needed for them came in and Church leaders began to help him. Somehow accommodation was found and medical care and food provided. Don Carlo taught the children to live with their disabilities and concentrated on their rehabilitation.
When he died, don Carlo donated his cornea to be used by two blind students.
Now the Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi is recognised as a Non Governmental Organisation and, in addition to specialising in the rehabilitation of disabled children, it helps the elderly and people with terminal cancer. It also specialises in scientific and biomedical research and works in countries outside Italy.
