Uberto Mori (28 January 1926 – 6 September 1989) was an Italian layman who served as a lecturer in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

and was also an

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

. Mori was also a member of the

Third Order of Saint Francis The Third Order of Saint Francis is a third order in the Franciscan tradition of Christianity, founded by the medieval Catholic Church in Italy, Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi. The preaching of Francis and his disciples caused many ma ...

and was known for his simple lifestyle, the purity in which he lived it, and his

veneration of Mary Marian devotions are external pious practices directed to the person of Mary, mother of God, by members of certain Christian traditions. They are performed in Catholicism, High Church Lutheranism, Anglo-Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Orient ...

. Mori was declared

Venerable The Venerable (''venerabilis'' in Latin) is a style, a title, or an epithet which is used in some Western Christian churches, or it is a translation of similar terms for clerics in Eastern Orthodoxy and monastics in Buddhism. Christianity Cathol ...

in 2014 after

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

recognized that he had lived a life of

heroic virtue Heroic virtue is a phrase coined by Augustine of Hippo to describe the virtue of early Christian martyrs and used by the Catholic Church. The Greek pagan term hero described a person with possibly superhuman abilities and great goodness, and "it ...

Life

Uberto Mori was born in 1926 in

Modena Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...

to Mario Mori and Edmea Scabazzi. Due to his father's several posts across the nation he studied in schools in cities such as

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

and

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

. His father – a soldier during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

– fell ill with cancer and it fell to Mori to replace him when he was seventeen. It was at this time that he managed to warn 107 Jewish children to flee the area before the advancing

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

arrived. His father died on 13 August 1944 as a result of the illness he contracted. After his father died he was exempted from further duties and took the chance to resume his studies. But partisans soon broke into his home to intimidate him. He was almost shot but managed to escape his attackers. He pursued educational interests in

after 1944 while he worked in

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

Formigine Formigine ( Modenese: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. As of 2007, Formigine had an estimated population of 31,643. History Formigine originates from the foundation of its castle in 1201 by the Comune of ...

. Mori married Gilda Cavedoni on 14 April 1952 and went on to have three children. The eldest child was Mario (b. 1953) and the second was their daughter Maria Teresa (b. 1955). Their next son was due in 1958 but Gilda suffered a miscarriage. In 1961 their final child Maria Manuela was born but she died after a mere thirteen months after birth due to a severe illness contracted. He graduated on 23 July 1959 with a degree in industrial engineering with honors and became an assistant and later a lecturer in Bologna. He became a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Technology. His entrepreneurial abilities allowed him to establish an institution in 1960 known as the Studio Tecnico Uberto Mori that aimed to replace ceramics. He also established – in 1968 – the Ovens Industrial Plants and another in 1971. To do this he travelled to the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

in order to purchase the

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

for the things that he would use for his establishment. The success of this business garnered wealth for Mori. It also convinced him that his sole aim was to be praise to the Lord in all circumstances. He later established the Mori Group in 1980 and the broadcaster Antenna Uno. Mori – in 1958 – met

Padre Pio Francesco Forgione, OFM Cap., better known as Padre Pio and as Saint Pius of Pietrelcina ( it, Pio da Pietrelcina; 25 May 188723 September 1968), was an Italian Franciscan Capuchin friar, priest, stigmatist, and mystic. He is venerated as a s ...

(future saint). Mori and his wife embarked on a pilgrimage to

Lourdes Lourdes (, also , ; oc, Lorda ) is a market town situated in the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region in southwestern France. Prior to the mid-19th century, the town was best known for the Château ...

in 1963. Mori became a member of the

on 19 February 1967 and he grew in his devotion to the

Blessed Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jews, Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Jose ...

. He became immersed in the Word of

God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

and he allowed for it to shape and inspire all of his choices. He supported hospitals and also established a hostel for Franciscan tertiaries. His spiritual advisor was the Capuchin Servant of God Raffaele Spallanzani who died in 1972. Mori also founded his own television station so that he could evangelize on air. It was on one such broadcast on 7 April 1987 that he suffered a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

. The result of this was that he was left crippled. Despite this he found that the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

enlightened him and the

rosary The Rosary (; la, , in the sense of "crown of roses" or "garland of roses"), also known as the Dominican Rosary, or simply the Rosary, refers to a set of prayers used primarily in the Catholic Church, and to the physical string of knots or b ...

supported him during his suffering. Uberto Mori died during an open-heart operation in

Pavia Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the capit ...

on 6 September 1989.

Beatification process

The beatification process commenced in Modena on 27 August 1997 under

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

and the local process that spanned from 6 December 1997 to 29 June 2000 conferred upon him the title of

Servant of God "Servant of God" is a title used in the Catholic Church to indicate that an individual is on the first step toward possible canonization as a saint. Terminology The expression "servant of God" appears nine times in the Bible, the first five in th ...

. The process was ratified in 2002. The

Positio In the Catholic Church, a ''positio'' (''Positio super Virtutibus'') is a document or collection of documents used in the process by which a person is declared Venerable, the second of the four steps on the path to canonization as a saint. Des ...

– which documented his life of

– was submitted in 2003 to the

Congregation for the Causes of Saints In the Catholic Church, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, previously named the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (), is the dicastery of the Roman Curia that oversees the complex process that leads to the canonization of saints, pa ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

for further evaluation.

approved his life of heroic virtue and proclaimed him to be

on 12 June 2014. The miracle required for his beatification was investigated and ratified on 18 April 2008.

References

External links

Hagiography CircleSaints SQPNUberto Mori
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mori, Uberto 1926 births 1989 deaths 20th-century venerated Christians Religious leaders from Modena Venerated Catholics by Pope Francis Members of the Third Order of Saint Francis Businesspeople from Modena