Aloisius Scrosoppi

Luigi Scrosoppi (4 August 1804 – 3 April 1884) was an Italian priest of the Catholic Church who founded the Sisters of Providence of Saint Cajetan of Thiene. He was canonized in 2001.

Biography Luigi Scrosoppi the last of three brothers born to Domenico Scrosoppi, a jeweller from Udine, and Antonia Lazzarini. His brother Carlo was ordained to the priesthood when Luigi was six and his other brother Gio.

As a teenager, he felt a call to the priesthood and studied before he was ordained to the diaconate in 1826. He was ordained to the priesthood on 31 March 1827 and celebrated his first Mass with his brothers. He helped to manage a children's center that his brother Carlo ran and he was an assistant there in 1829. Later joined the Third Order of Franciscans. As head of the “union of the heart of Jesus Christ,” he devoted himself to the construction of an orphanage and supported his brother Carlo, who also was a priest.

Sainthood Theologians approved Scrosoppi's writings as a prerequisite for beatification on 14 March 1952. The introduction of the cause for sainthood - which conferred upon him the title of Servant of God - came on 27 February 1964 under Pope Paul VI. The declaration that he led a life of heroic virtue allowed for Paul VI to name him Venerable on 12 June 1978. Pope John Paul II beatified him on 4 October 1981 and would also canonize him as a saint on 10 June 2001. His Day of Remembrance in the liturgy is on April 3 (day of his death).

The miracle for canonization

For the purposes of canonization, the Catholic Church considers to be necessary have a second miracle after the one required for the beatification: in the case of Luigi Scrosoppi, it considered miraculous the healing of Peter Chungu Shitima, a terminal AIDS sufferer, which occurred in 1996.

Peter Chungu Shitima was a student of the oratory of St. Philip Neri of Oudtshoorn, a town near the southern coast of South Africa. In the spring of 1996, he began to experience increasingly serious disturbances, so much so that he was hospitalized, where he was diagnosed with AIDS at the terminal stage.

The religious community in which he belonged began unremitting prayers, to obtain the intercession of Luigi Scrosoppi. In the night between 9 and 10 October 1996, the young man dreamed of Scrosoppi, and suddenly he felt he was cured, awakening, resuming his normal activity.

The healing was observed by doctors Johannes Le Roux and Pete du Toit, both non-Catholics, who could not explain the incident. The case, examined at the Oudtshoorn Curia, was submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints who, on July 1, 2000, promulgated in the presence of Pope John Paul II the miracle decree for the "rapid, complete and lasting healing of Peter Chungu Shitima by polyineuritis and cachexia in positive HIV subject.