Francesco Spinelli

Francesco Spinelli (14 April 1853 – 6 February 1913) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Sisters Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament.

[6] He - with his parents and siblings - moved from Milan to Cremona when he was still a child and would spend his summers at Vergo where in 1871 he was cured of a severe spinal problem.

[6] He was ordained to the priesthood in Bergamo on 14 August 1875 (which he received from the Bishop Pietro Luigi Speranza) and not long after travelled to Rome to take part in the Jubilee that Pope Pius IX convoked.

This provided him with the inspiration he needed to found a religious congregation of his own after a vision in which he saw women worshiping Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration.

[3][2] In 1892 he founded the Sisters Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament that later received the diocesan approval of the Bishop of Cremona Geremia Bonomelli in 1897.

[3] The papal decree of praise for his order was issued on 11 December 1926 and later received full pontifical approval on 27 February 1932 from Pope Pius XI.

[2] On 30 August 1958 the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli - the future Pope John XXIII - visited Spinelli's tomb and wrote in his journal: "Going from Lodi and arrived in Rivolta d'Adda where I admired the general house of the Sisters Adorers founded by Venerable Francesco Spinelli at whose tomb I was glad to pray".

There came a case in the 2000s from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo that was subjected to a diocesan investigation from 10 to 16 August 2014 and was sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints for further assessment.