Giovanni Antonio Farina

The principal work of Giovanni Antonio Farina is the foundation of a teaching religious institute. As early as 1831, he opened a first school in Vicenza intended for poor young girls, then, on November 11, 1836, he founded the Institute of the Teaching Sisters of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts. The congregation received pontifical approval from Pope Gregory XVI on March 1, 1839. Farina conceived an educational work aimed at disadvantaged girls: not only children from good families, but especially those whom poverty or serious infirmities rendered vulnerable, in particular blind and deaf-mute girls. Alongside instruction, the religious sisters dedicated themselves to the care of the sick and the elderly. In 1850, Farina was appointed Bishop of Treviso, then transferred on June 18, 1860, to the see of Vicenza, which he occupied until his death. An active bishop, he visited parishes, including mountain villages, reorganized the formation of the clergy, and multiplied charitable confraternities, thus extending the apostolic momentum of his foundation into his episcopal ministry.

The reputation for holiness of Giovanni Antonio Farina rests upon a charity held to be heroic by the Church. Nicknamed the "bishop of the poor," he personally visited the sick in hospitals, organized associations for the assistance of the indigent in his dioceses, and concerned himself with the quality of care, going so far as to disseminate knowledge to improve nursing service. His spirituality united devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, which he placed at the heart of his foundation, and a high conception of education. He summarized his pedagogical intuition by stating that "true science consists in the education of the heart, that is to say, in the practical fear of God." As bishop, he worked tirelessly for the doctrinal and spiritual formation of the clergy and the faithful, leading the first diocesan synod in Vicenza since 1689. This constancy in the service of the weakest and in pastoral reform founded the conviction, after his death, that he had lived the Christian virtues to an exemplary degree, opening the way to his cause for beatification.

The cause of Giovanni Antonio Farina led to his beatification, celebrated in Rome on November 4, 2001, by Pope John Paul II. The miracle accepted for this stage was the healing, deemed inexplicable, of an Ecuadorian nun suffering from an advanced cancerous tumor, attributed to the intercession of the founder. The canonization was subsequently pronounced by Pope Francis on November 23, 2014, in St. Peter's Square, during a ceremony where Farina was proclaimed a saint along with several other blesseds. Pope Francis had approved, by decree on April 3, 2014, the miracle required for canonization, linked according to sources to a childbirth and the survival of a seriously ill mother in India. The liturgical feast of Saint Giovanni Antonio Farina is set for March 4, the anniversary of his death; in the dioceses of Vicenza and Treviso, his memory is also celebrated on January 14.

The legacy of Saint Giovanni Antonio Farina remains alive first and foremost in the congregation he founded, the Teaching Sisters of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts, present in several countries in the service of education, the care of the sick, and the accompaniment of the poorest. Recognized as a precursor in the attention paid to blind and deaf-mute girls, Farina is honored as a figure of 19th-century Venetian educational charity. His memory is particularly maintained in his region of origin: the motherhouse of the institute is located in Vicenza, and the dioceses of Vicenza and Treviso, which he successively governed, count him among their saints. His remains are preserved in Vicenza, a place of pilgrimage for the faithful and the religious of the congregation. Patron saint of the institute he founded, he remains invoked as a model of a bishop close to the poor and a promoter of an education rooted in faith.