My brother is a Jesuit
Today we are not talking about the Jesuit brother, in the sense of a consecrated layman, but about blood brothers.
Many Jesuits are not only sons but have sisters and brothers, often themselves members of other religious orders, some have even gone down in history as we recall in this tip.
Today’s tip could also have been titled ‘My brother is a VIP of history’, but you know, you become a historical figure by ending up in the textbooks years after your death, so these Jesuits were not yet certain to be brothers of writers, patriots and famous people.
That is why it is more likely that it was the lay brother, not yet emblazoned by history, who said ‘My brother is a Jesuit’.
A certain Silvio Pellico, patriot and author of the famous memoirs ‘My Prisons’, certainly defined his own brother in this way. Fr. Francesco Pellico was in fact his brother.
Born in Saluzzo on 12 February 1802, he entered the Society of Jesus on 12 November 1834, took his first vows on 2 February 1945 and died on 29 April 1884 in Chieri. During his life, in addition to the various apostolates he held, he had also dedicated himself to collecting the writings of his brother Silvio, after his death.
P. Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio is not only a namesake of the D’Azeglio senators, but their brother.
He was born in Turin on 24 November 1793, entered the order on 12 November 1814 in Rome, pronounced his Last Vows ten years later, on 8 December 1824, and died on 21 September 1862 in Rome, after having helped found the magazine ‘Civiltà Cattolica’ for which he wrote at length.
The accompanying photo shows two documents taken from Fr. Taparelli d’Azeglio’s file, a personal letter and notification of his mother’s death, and a photograph of the elderly Fr. Francesco Pellico.
Perhaps not many people know that one of the brothers of the well-known and popular actress Bice Valori was a Jesuit: Fr. Paolo Valori with a long teaching career at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Not only brothers, there are several other degrees of kinship with other historical figures as well.
Mgr Pacelli, who later ascended to the Papal Throne under the name of Pius XII, was in fact the uncle of a Jesuit: Giuseppe Maria Pacelli, who could never claim kinship with his uncle the Pope. The young Jesuit died in fact in 1928, only five years after entering the novitiate and eleven years before his uncle was elected Pope.
Maria Macchi
