Seventy years ago, October 21, 1951, the Capuchin friar Ignazio da Laconi became a saint, proclaimed by Pope Pius XII, the same one who declared him blessed eleven years earlier. An anniversary that in Sardinia never goes unnoticed, especially in this 2021, the year of Saint Ignatius, one could say, given that within the twelve months the 320 years from his birth fall, the 300 from his entry into convent, the 240th anniversary of his death: dates that mark the biography of this Capuchin saint (1701-1781), to whom the Sardinians have great devotion. For Catholics, his name (in the century Vincenzo Peis) is linked to the miracle of a sick woman who would have started walking again thanks to the intercession of the Sardinian friar, appreciated for his humility and dedication to others. It is normal for the faithful to make a visit today to via Sant'Ignazio, in Cagliari, where his remains rest in the convent of the Capuchin church.

The work of the friars

It is also a special year for Voce Serafica della Sardegna, the monthly created out of devotion to Friar Ignazio himself: the magazine, published by the Capuchin friars of Sardinia and Corsica, is in fact one hundred years old. "A beautiful milestone, which includes the seventieth anniversary of St. Ignatius, the first Sardinian canonized with an ordinary canonical process", says the director in charge Sergio Nuvoli, "Voce Serafica was born as a bulletin, after the First World War, inserting itself in a context of reconstruction, material and spiritual poverty, in an island that was trying to recover for the umpteenth time. Vocations to the Franciscan-Capuchin life flourished and the Tuscan friars, full of zeal, felt as if they had been invested by the mission of Sardinia. Thus they had the happy intuition of creating the "bulletin of the venerable fra Ignazio da Laconi", to make known the figure of the Sardinian friar (who in 1921 was not yet a saint) but also to train the laity in Franciscan spirituality.

The newspaper

Retracing the origins of Voce Serafica it is also possible to make a portrait of Sardinia at the time. The Sardinians were already a very religious people and devoted to St. Francis of Assisi. Here is the story of Nuvoli, a professional journalist and professor of editorial writing at the University of Cagliari. “Even the only venerable Fra Ignazio da Laconi at the time, despite having been dead for over a century, was invoked by many. Not much printed paper was circulating in Sardinian houses and the simplicity and humility with which he introduced himself allowed the bulletin to enter thousands of homes: in many cases it happened that one read it aloud for the whole family, perhaps the only one who knew light. Without slipping into sentimentality, I like to imagine the scene, in the evening, before or after the prayer of the rosary in the courtyards of the houses of the villages during the summer or around the hearths in the winter. I would sum up the initial success of Voce Serafica della Sardegna in three words: simplicity, utility, economy. Which after 100 years we still find ».

The centenary

Already after the Second World War the magazine made a qualitative leap, expanding with more pages and modernizing itself. "In 2017, when I was appointed director", explains Nuvoli, "the friars asked me precisely to recover the spirit of the origin, on the one hand by publishing the news of the communities scattered in Sardinia and Corsica, on the other by restoring the part historian that told the story of Sant'Ignazio da Laconi, of the Blessed Nicola da Gesturi and of the Venerable Fra Nazareno da Pula, who were beginning to be forgotten. And it is at its origins that we continue to inspire ourselves ». (c.ra.)

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