Riccardo Pampuri

Riccardo Pampuri, OH (2 August 1897 – 1 May 1930) - born Erminio Filippo Pampuri was an Italian medical doctor and a veteran of World War I who was also a professed member of the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God. Pampuri worked as a field doctor on the battlefield during the Great War and was discharged in 1920 when he was able to resume his studies and soon begin his own practice as a doctor where he tended to the poor without charge. He became a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis as "Antonio" while founding the Band of Pius X, which he dedicated to the medical care of poor people. But Pampuri later became a professed religious for the call was too great for him to ignore; he managed a free dental clinic in Brescia for his order.

Pampuri's canonization cause opened in the Milan archdiocese in 1970 and he became titled as a Servant of God, while Pope Paul VI titled him as Venerable on 12 June 1978 after confirming that he had lived a model life of heroic virtue. Pope John Paul II beatified Pampuri on 4 October 1981 and later canonized him at the end of that decade on 1 November 1989. His writings were all investigated and found to be in line with official doctrine thus received theological approval on 4 May 1954 while the formal introduction to the cause came on 10 July 1970 in which he was named as a Servant of God. Cardinal Giovanni Colombo oversaw an apostolic process in 1971 after which stage all documentation collected was sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (C.C.S.) in Rome who validated both processes on 3 December 1971.

The members of the C.C.S. and their official consultants voiced their approval to the cause on 29 November 1977 while the C.C.S. members alone met and approved the cause on 21 February 1978 after reviewing all the documentation. On 12 June 1978 he was proclaimed to be Venerable after Pope Paul VI confirmed that Pampuri had led a model life of heroic virtue.

One miracle that science could not explain - a healing - had to be investigated and approved for Pampuri to be beatified. The approval of one such healing allowed for Pope John Paul II to preside over Pampuri's beatification on 4 October 1981. The second miracle required for full sainthood was investigated in Spain in Alcadozo and concerned the 5 January 1982 cure of the child Manuel Cifuentes Rodenas (b. 1971) who would normally have been blinded in his right eye, due to a certain injury his eye received from an almond tree branch, but inexplicably his eye healed back to still provide vision, after his father appealed to the late Pampuri for a healing. This was investigated on a diocesan level and the C.C.S. validated the process on 6 February 1987 with a medical panel approving it on 19 October 1988. Theologians also approved this miracle on 17 January 1989 as did the C.C.S. on 11 February 1989. John Paul II canonized Pampuri as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on 1 November 1989.