Innocenzo da Berzo

Innocenzo da Berzo (19 March 1844 - 3 March 1890), born Giovanni Scalvinoni, was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Order of Friars Minor. Scalvinoni assumed his new religious name upon his profession as a Capuchin friar.

Pope John XXIII beatified him on 12 November 1961.

Life Giovanni Scalvinoni was born on 19 March 1844 to farm-workers Pietro Scalvinoni and Francesca Poli in Niardo, (Brescia). He was baptized Giovanni. His father died of pneumonia when Giovanni was three months old in June 1844. He spent his childhood in Berzo.

As a small child he had great mercy for the poor, giving generously to those who asked, even though his family was in need. In 1861 his uncle Francesco sent him to the municipal college in Lovere in the province of Bergamo and he passed with high marks. In 1864 he entered the diocesan seminary of Brescia. He was ordained to the priesthood on 2 June 1867 and held some positions, including that of vice-chancellor of the seminary, but each time he was removed because his innate shyness made it difficult to impose authority. From 26 to 28 September of the same year his body was transferred to the cemetery of Berzo Inferiore in a trip defined as "the last itinerant adventure connected to the earthly world of the little friar from Berzo". The mortal remains of Innocenzo from Berzo arrived in Vallecamonica some months after his death. Even though the news went slower than now, a great number of people asked the Conventual house, where his body was resting, to have a relic of his mortal remains. His remains are preserved in the Marian basilica of Santa Maria Nascente in Berzo Inferiore.

Beatification

He is held in high esteem in the Valcamonica region of Lombardy. There are two miracles attributed to the late friar. The first is a cure of a male child at the age of four from an aggressive form of leukemia. The second is the cure of another male child of the age of five from peritonitis.

Pope John XXIII presided over the beatification of Innocenzo da Berzo on 12 November 1961 and made him the patron of both Berzo and of children.