Father Oreste Benzi
A brief biography of the founder of the Community of Pope John XXIII
1925
He was born on 7 September in San Clemente, a small village in the hills near Rimini. He was the seventh of nine children of a poor family of workers.
1937
He entered the seminary in Rimini at the age of 12.
1949
He was ordained a priest on 29 June and on 5 July he was appointed chaplain of S.Nicolò parish in Rimini.
1950
He started teaching at Rimini seminary and was appointed Vice-Assistant of Catholic Youth in the Diocese of Rimini (he become Assistant in 1952). He understood the importance of ‘being present’ to teenagers and helping them to meet Christ.
1953
He became the spiritual director, in the seminary in Rimini, of young people aged between 12 and 17. This role continued until 1969 and gave him the chance to know and understand young people.
1958
Having understood that wonderful mountain landscapes can help young people meet Infinity, he went to the United States, authorised by Bishop Emilio Biancheri, in search for funds to build a holiday house in Alba di Canazei, in the Dolomites, which was called ‘Madonna delle Vette’. The house was finished in 1961 and thousands of young people have spent a holiday there.
1959
Whilst continuing his work in the seminary and amongst Rimini diocesan youth, he also started teaching religion in different high schools of the area (Rimini and Riccione). He was committed to finding new ways to help young people meet Jesus and make them aware of various situations of poverty.
1968
Having understood the ways in which disabled people were marginalised, he launched, with the slogan ‘wherever they are, we will also be’, the very first ‘sharing holiday’ in ‘Madonna delle Vette’. He involved some of his students and other young people who, with him and under the guidance of Don Elio Piccari, ‘shared’ their holiday with disabled people. This experience marked the beginning of the ‘Community Pope John XXIII’, which was given legal status in 1972.
1973
Under his guidance, the first family home of the Community was opened. Family homes later became the symbol of the Community and the number of them have increased to the current number of 200.
1980
Again under his guidance, the first therapeutic community for the rehabilitation of drug-addicts was opened. In the same year, together with the first group of people who had joined him, he wrote the ‘Scheme of Life’ of the Community. Through this document, in 1983, the Community was recognised as an Ecclesial Association by Mon. Locatelli, Bishop of Rimini.
1986
On May 24, he inaugurated the ‘Holy Family Home’ for children in Ndola, Zambia. Many other missions have been opened after this and Father Oreste travelled to inaugurate and visit them worldwide.
1991
He confronted the phenomenon of prostitution and realised its slave-like nature. Presence in the streets of members of the Community amongst prostitutes and ‘viados’ (transvestite prostitutes) started. He committed himself to liberating these ‘new slaves’ and denouncing the silence of institutions about this issue.
1998
On October 24, with great joy and emotion, he received from the hands of Cardinal J.F.Stafford the decree of the Pontifical Council for the Laity which recognised the Association ‘Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII’ as an International Lay Association of Pontifical Right. The Universal Church confirmed the intuition that the Spirit had given him 30 years before. The new Statutes, for the first time, officially defined him as the founder of the Association and nominated him lifelong president.
2004
On March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, he received the decree of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, signed by Cardinal Stanislaw Ryilko, which granted the final approval of the Statutes and Foundation Charter of the Association.
On November 29 he was received, with all the Community, in a private audience by Pope John Paul II, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the first family home. The Pope entrusted the Community to ‘the Virgin Mother of God, so that she may make you sowers of hope, love and peace for ever’ and invited everybody to ensure that ‘the Eucharist is at the heart of your family homes and of all your other social and educational activities’. In the years to come Father Oreste was often to repeat this invitation.
2007
On November 2, the day of the Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed, at 2.20 in the morning, Father Oreste joined our Heavenly Father. The comment that he had previously written in the bimonthly ‘Daily Bread’ for the first reading of that day (Job 19:1;23-27) was prophetic:
‘When I close my eyes to this world, the people around me will say, “He is dead”. This is a lie. I will be dead for those who are there and will see me. My hands will be cold and my eyes will not be able to see but, in reality, death does not exist because as soon as I close my eyes to this world I will open myself to the infinity of God. We will see Him, as Paul said, face to face, as He really is (1Cor 13:12). And the words written in Chapter 3 of the Book of Wisdom will become true: God created human beings to be immortal, He made them in the image of his own nature. Therefore, immortality is already inside us and death is nothing but the blossoming of my identity, of my being with God forever. Death is the moment of our embrace with the Father, deeply longed for by the heart of all, by every human being’.