Marcantonio Durando

Marcantonio Durando was born in 1801 in Mondovì as one of ten children to Angela Vinaj (d. 1822); two siblings died as infants. Tancredi Falletti and his wife Juliette Colbert were the founders and heads of those two orders branched for the two genders. Durando tried in his mission as a priest to oppose the rigors of Jansenism that plagued the times. He saw the usefulness in introducing the Vincentian Sisters from France to the Italian peninsula and so petitioned King Carlo Alberto to welcome them; the king did so in 1833 and the sisters assumed charge of hospitals with an emphasis on those with soldiers in places such as Genoa and Turin. The first two religious came on 16 May 1833 with more arriving in August. In 1855 he sent the sisters to the frontlines during the Crimean War to help the wounded. Around this time the bishop Giustino de Jacobis invited Durando to serve with him in Ethiopia but the latter refused for his obligations tied him to Turin. On 21 November 1865 he founded an order for women – the Nazarene Sisters – alongside Luigia Borgiotti who became one of the new order's first postulants. He also spread the message of the Miraculous Medal of Catherine Labouré and to that effect established the Children of Mary in 1856. This caused an increase in vocations so much so that Carlo Alberto in 1837 granted them the convent of S. Salvario in Turin to use for their work. In 1857 he wrote to his brother Giacomo during the period of anti-clerical sentiment and greater conflict: "With all my heart I want peace between the government and the church, and that there should be an end to this uneasiness in which we find ourselves all the time, and an end, in short, to this attacking of the church and its institutions and its rules, and, in short, that we be allowed to live and breathe". Durando wrote a long letter again to his brother in 1870 to explain his puzzlement at the hostile situation that also saw the loss of the Papal States. Durando died on 10 December 1880. Giovanni Rinaldi – the superior of the Casa della Pace branch in Chieri – said of Durando's death: "we have lost another St. Vincent". ==Beatification==

The beatification process opened in Turin after Cardinal Giuseppe Gamba inaugurated the informative process in 1928. Maurilio Fossati closed the process in 1930 which received validation from the Congregation of Rites in 1951. Fossati's spiritual writings were approved by theologians on 14 November 1934 and 27 November 1937. Fossati also inaugurated the beginning of an apostolic process that started in 1940 and concluded not long after. The formal introduction to the cause came on 23 March 1941 under Pope Pius XII, granting Durando the title of Servant of God. The official Positio then was submitted to Rome at which point theologians voiced a favorable response to the dossier on 12 January 1971 while a historical commission met and approved the cause on 21 September 1978. The members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints voiced their approval as well on 27 March 1979 though met for a second time to discuss the cause further on 20 June 2000. Durano became titled as Venerable – on 1 July 2000 – after Pope John Paul II confirmed the fact that the late priest had in fact lived a life of heroic virtue. The process for a miracle opened in Turin in 1936 and concluded not long after in which all interrogatories and medical documentation was collected. The C.C.S. validated this process decades later on 13 January 1995 while a medical board approved the healing to be a miracle on 19 February 2001. Theologians followed this verdict on 12 October 2001 while the members of the C.C.S. did so as well on 20 November 2001. The pope approved the miracle on 20 December 2001. John Paul II beatified Durando on 20 October 2002. The miracle in question involved the cure of Mrs. Stella Ingiani who grew ill and later was comatose after the 28 November 1932 birth of her daughter in her home. Durando's order begged for their founder's intercession and Ingiani awoke from her coma to a rapid cure. ==References==