Giovanni Semeria

Giovanni Semeria (26 September 1867 – 15 March 1931) was an Italian preacher and author. He was one of the most high-profile representatives of Italian Catholicism during the early decades of the twentieth century. In 1912 he founded the Giovine Orchestra Genovese. Probably his more defining legacy is the Opera nazionale per il Mezzogiorno d'Italia (O.N.P.M.I. / loosely, "National Operation for Southern Italy") which he set up with Giovanni Minozzi to create and operate a chain of orphanages and associated educational facilities, addressing an urgent necessity created by the slaughter of the First World War. The fact that he was an orphan conditioned Semera's entire life.

Early years When he was 9 Giovanni's mother sent him to a boarding school in Cremona, under Jesuit influence: he remained at school in Cremona till he was 14. He was then transferred to the Carlo Alberto Academy ("Real Collegio Carlo Alberto") at Moncalieri (near Turin) where the principal influence came from Barnabites. It was here that his vocation matured, which led him to break off his schooling. Two years later he was invited to preach the 1897 Lent sermons at the basilica San Lorenzo in Damaso in Rome where he attracted crowds that overflowed up the altar steps and into the apse beyond. The sermons greatly extended his reputation, and over the next few years he accepted invitations to preach in France, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Asia, Africa, and the United States. Semeria was accused ("unjustly

War Semeria never wanted war and certainly never would have promoted it, but was slowly converted to acceptance that it was the political reality. On a human level he was not insensitive to the emotional response engendered by the invasion of Belgium. More widely, there was no shortage of priests desperately applying to be involved on the frontline, for instance as military chaplains. Meanwhile, within the military establishment there were concerns that involving priests in the actual fighting, especially priests with a history of outspokenness and oratorical effectiveness, risked introducing unhelpful and inappropriate shades of pacifism to the fighting troops. At the same time, Marshall Cadorna, Chief of Staff of the Italian Army between 1914 and 1917, was on record as being personally in favour of the involvement of military chaplains on the frontline. Cadorna had been posted to Genoa back in 1911: he and Semeria had known each other well since that time. In June 1915 Cadorna invited Semeria to come for a meeting at Treviso. Semeria was still banned from entering Italy and there was no question of his crossing the border from Switzerland going unnoticed: there is shrill written evidence in surviving sources of consternation on the part of Cardinal de Lai and a number of others. Nevertheless, Semeria's passage was not blocked, and despite some uncertainty along the way as to whether he would attend the meeting – which may have resulted simply from his messages not being delivered as anticipated – on 13 June 1915 Giovanni Semeria did indeed enjoy the rare (for a priest) privilege of a personal meeting with the supreme commander of the Italian army. The upshot was his appointment as a military chaplain, though in the immediate term he was given no information on where he would be sent. Fulfilling that ambition was the project to which, using all his gifts with the spoken and written word, Giovanni Semeria would devote the final decade of his life. His skill as a public speaker combined with his first hand experience of the scale of the orphan issue created by the war to make him a highly effective fund raiser. He addressed church congregations and public meetings in theatres and town halls. In the words of one source, people "were astonished by this bearded figure with such a picturesque and disorderly style...".

The scale of the initiative, and of Semeria's success in attracting generous international financial support for it, quickly became apparent. The operation was registered as a legal entity on 13 January 1921 with a name redolent of its founders' ambitions for it: Opera nazionale per il Mezzogiorno d'Italia (O.N.P.M.I. / loosely, "National Operation for Southern Italy"). Ten years later the O.N.P.M.I. had looked after more than 1,000 orphans in 14 orphanages, more than 6,000 in 60 Kindergartens with workshop annexes, with 20 alpine and coastal summer-camp locations.