[1] He worked to protect Jewish people during World War II and was involved in preventing their deportation by the creation of new documents that would save the Italian Jews' lives by making pass them as non-Jewish Italians, in particular for kids by hiding them in homes and industries or helping them to safety relocate to the UK or America.In 1950, at his father's death and at the end of WWII, Marcello Candia assumed full management of his family chemical industrial factory headquartered in Milan with full control of its operation across Italy.

[1][3] Marcello Candia was born in 1916 to a Milanese industrialist family, in Naples while his parents were temporarily expanding business in Southern Italy.

[7] His father served as an industrialist and founded several carbonic acid factories with head office in Milan, before transferring operations to Naples and eventually spreading business to Pisa and Aquila.

His father, following his mother's devotion, retained his upbringing in the faith but was not active in practicing it; he was respectful of others and was a keen supporter of social justice initiatives.

His mother died in 1933 from pneumonia and his grief at her death was so profound that he fell ill and from that moment suffered from frequent headaches and bouts of insomnia.

[2] The war's end saw him help deportees and prisoners return to their homes while he opened a medical and humanitarian welcome center at the local train station with three friends.

In 1945, Marcelo Candia and Elda Mazzocchi Scarzella founded the "House of Mother and Child" to take care of and help teenage women in crisis pregnancies and their children.

His Capuchin spiritual director (Fra Genesio da Gallarate; secular: Alessandro Premazzi) did not approve of his collaboration with Marzocchi, believing that a home for teenage mothers was not a suitable environment for one who desired to live celibate.

During the night of 22 October 1955 there was an accidental explosion of 60 000 liters of carbonic acid that killed two people while causing destruction to the warehouse that had just been renovated.

Candia provided for the families of the victims and assumed the task of reconstructing the warehouse so that no client or worker would be wronged due to the accident.

In 1957 he made his first visit to Macapá in Brazil, where he studied the issues and assessed the local needs and problems at the request of the PIME priest Aristide Pirovano.

After 1967 he suffered four consecutive heart attacks and grew fearful that another could claim his life; on 9 April 1977 (Good Friday) he had to have a triple bypass in São Paulo and was urged to seek better treatment in his homeland if he wished to survive.

[1] During his time in Brazil he became known as the "Doctor Schweitzer of the Amazon" and in 1980 met Pope John Paul II after the latter visited his leper hospital.

He left Belem for his homeland on 10 August 1983 knowing he would die there but wanted to get his health checked as well as to reconcile with his brother Riccardo with whom there were difficulties.

He died on 31 August 1983 at 5:30 pm in the San Pio X Clinic in Milan, and Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini presided over his funeral on 2 September.

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini oversaw the diocesan phase of investigation in Milan from 12 January 1991 until its closure at a Mass on 8 February 1994; the C.C.S.