Armida Barelli

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Armida Barelli is featured in the title of "A Woman of Two Centuries", wanting to highlight the role so well that the transition woman had, in going from a company that imagined, a company that was later opened to the so-called "feminine genius".

And this was Armida Barelli, who undoubtedly played an important role in Italian Catholic feminism, right at the turn of the century and until 1952, when he died.

He was born in Milan on December 1, 1882, to prosperous middle-class parents and Savina Napoleão Candiani, unfortunately, could not breathe in the family upbringing inspired by religious principles, but secular, typical of the bourgeoisie of the time, he had two brothers Gino and Fausto. and sisters Gemma, Maria and Victoria.

In 1910 came the long-awaited turning point, he met the Franciscan priest Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959), a great figure of Franciscan Italian, he learned and founding knowledge, in 1921, of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, in Milan. Armida became so in 1910, and at the side of the Franciscan tertiary Father Gemelli began fervent apostolic and social activities, which lasted until his death, his learned spiritual director felt in her a character similar to his, and, above all, the innate qualities of organization and founder, so that he sustained it with his strong personality, nurturing the deep faith that will lead to the path of holiness.

And so gradually maturing into perfection, he found himself a participant in many initiatives, such as a plan of care for the worker, the German translator of articles for the "Journal of the Neo-Scholasticism of Philosophy", founded by Father Gemelli, in 1917 during the First World War, he was secretary of the Commission for the Consecration to the Sacred Heart of soldiers, of whom he was most devoted and trusted only to Him.

The following year, 1918, he saw involved with the motto "I trust you", and tasks in important positions, he was Vice-President of the Social Action Committee of Catholic Women Milan, director of the new publishing house "Life and Thought", the seventeenth of February he received the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Andrea Ferrari, who had heard of her, from the association of the "girls of Catholic Youth Action" similar to the existing men, becoming the first president.

On November 19, 1919, together with Father Gemelli, he established a "pious fraternity" of secular women, which became in 1948 "Secular Institute of the Missionaries of the Royalty of Christ, still in November 1921, at the express request of Pope Benedict XV. founded the Society of Friends of the Catholic University. "

It was at the forefront in the struggle to get the women's vote in 1948, its foundations, aimed at strengthening and promoting the woman's personality, extended to Venezuela, Australia, Bulgaria, USA, China, and its was really a high social political commitment. , in the light of Christian principles.

Armida died Marzio (Varese) in the family mansion, where she used to run away to pray and plan her activities; it was August 15, 1952, the feast of the Assumption of Mary, a few hours earlier Gemelli had come from Milan, to greet and comfort.

On August 17, she was buried in the small Marzio cemetery, until March 8, 1953, when she was translated with honors, in the Chapel of the Catholic University of Milan, where he rests in the crypt, with Father Gemelli, who died six years later, in 1959.

It was written about her: "The Barelli presence was not a 'noisy', from the first pages, but an active, although discreet and sometimes invisible, it was a 'Pasionaria', but armed only with 'intelligent faith'; he knew how to understand the status of women 'of' their time 'in' their time and to give back the dignity of presence in civil society, in fidelity to the Christian ideal."

On July 17, 1970 the Archbishop's Curia of Milan opened the diocesan process for his beatification, after which he went to Rome for the responsible Congregation.

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Foot. Augustine Gemelli

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Beginnings of Edward Cuff was born in Milan on January 18, 1878 to a practicing and decidedly anti-clerical family.

Agostinho Gemelli was a great authoritative student of psychology, within the scope of the evolutionary age. For pedagogy it can sometimes go unnoticed, as its main focus did not come within education itself. However, his thinking greatly contributed to pedagogy.

The distinctly Franciscan brand of Father Gemelli's pedagogical ideals demanded that he, an obstinate scholar and devoured by an insatiable intellectual curiosity and therefore passionate organizer of scientific studies, was at every moment ready to put aside his research for immediate action.

Gemelli contributed to education by giving due importance to interior freedom, since he exalted freedom as the most precious fruit of Franciscan poverty, because for Agostinho Gemelli, being authentically poor means being free.

In Agostinho Gemelli, one can find an ardent educator, who saw education as a transforming process in society. Guided by his vocation as an educator, this Franciscan gave himself fully to a conscious constriction of a liberating pedagogy. And so, “we must not forget that all his activity, even when he openly addressed the earthly city, always had the heavenly city in view”.