By Clare Myers
With the body of the recently beatified Italian martyr Odoardo Focherini consumed by the fires of a concentration camp’s crematorium, his home Diocese of Carpi needed to find an alternative relic.
They chose his wedding ring.
“The life of Odoardo was a love song,” said Bishop Francesco Cavina of Carpi, Blessed Focherini’s hometown.
Focherini, an Italian journalist and father of seven, saved more than a hundred Jews during the Holocaust. His beatification June 15 was praised by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in a press release.
“Odoardo Focherini acted selflessly in accordance with the highest moral principles shared by our two religions,” said Lisa Palmieri-Billig, representative of AJC in Italy and liaison to the Holy See. “This act will create yet another bond between Christians and Jews.”
Focherini was declared “Righteous Among the Nations” in 1969 by the Jewish memorial organization Yad Vashem. The distinction is given to those who risked their lives to help Jews during the Holocaust.
Focherini helped orchestrate escapes from Italy into Switzerland with forged identity cards. He was arrested by the Nazis while organizing another rescue at a hospital in Carpi in 1944 and taken to a prison in Bologna. He was transferred to several camps before arriving at a camp in Hersbruck, Germany, where he was said to be an inspiration to other prisoners.
“Even in the prison camps, he spread optimism and hope,” said Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, who presided over the beatification ceremony.
Before he died of a leg wound in the camp in 1944, Focherini managed to send more than 150 letters to his family and friends.
His wife, Maria Marchesi, gave her support to his heroic work when he asked for her consent in risking his life to help those persecuted by the Nazis.
“We have a house and bread,” Maria told him. “They do not.”
The couple’s love is reflected in the choice of Focherini’s wedding ring for the official relic. The martyr’s grandson, Luca Semellina, gave the ring to the Diocese of Carpi on “permanent loan.”
Semellina, a goldsmith, set the ring in a golden cross and surrounded it with barbed wire to symbolize the joining of his grandfather’s sufferings with Christ’s passion. Significantly, the wire is “deliberately and forcefully ripped,” according to Semellina, to demonstrate that evil will ultimately be defeated.
The relic, like Focherini’s life, serves as an inspiration. Pope Francis praised his heroism at the end of a Mass celebrating the day in the Year of Faith dedicated to the encyclical “Evangelium Vitae.”
“We give thanks to God for this witness of the Gospel of Life!” he said. – CNS