Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Blessed Maria Corsini, the First Couple Beatified Together

Who was Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi?

Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi was a Roman lawyer, a husband and a father who, with his wife, Blessed Maria Corsini, became the first married couple the Church ever beatified together. Pope John Paul II raised them to the altars in St. Peter's Basilica on October 21, 2001. In his homily he said they lived "an ordinary life in an extraordinary way." Their holiness was not in great deeds but in a home built on daily Mass, the family rosary and service to others. We keep their feast together on November 25, the day they were married.

The life of Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi

A Sicilian boy in Rome

Luigi was born in Catania, Sicily, on January 12, 1880, the son of Carlo and Francesca Beltrame. Around 1889, his mother's sister Stefania and her husband, Luigi Quattrocchi, who had no children, asked to raise him, and he went to live with them; that is how he came by the double surname. In 1890 his uncle, chief cashier of the royal customs, was transferred to Rome, where Luigi spent the rest of his life. He finished secondary school at the Liceo Umberto I and took his law degree at La Sapienza on July 14, 1902.

By the EWTN account, as a young man he did not have a strong faith. That changed through Maria.

Maria Corsini and the wedding at Santa Maria Maggiore

He met Maria Corsini, a young Florentine whose family had settled in Rome, in 1901. They became engaged privately on March 15, 1905, and formally before both families on March 30. On November 25, 1905, they were married in the Chapel of St. Catherine in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

They had four children: Filippo (1906), who became Father Tarcisio; Stefania (1908), who became a Benedictine nun, Sister Cecilia; Cesare (1909), who became a Benedictine and then a Trappist monk, Father Paolino; and Enrichetta, born on April 6, 1914. Her pregnancy was dangerous, and EWTN reports that a doctor advised ending it; Luigi and Maria refused and "put their whole trust in the Lord's Providence." Enrichetta lived until 2012, and the Church has since declared her Venerable.

A lawyer for the Italian state

Luigi spent his career in the Avvocatura dello Stato, the legal service that defends the Italian government. He rose through its ranks, served as its secretary general from 1921, and retired in 1946 with the honorary title of Vice-Avvocato Generale dello Stato. He also advised several ministries and major Italian banks and public companies. Those who knew him described him as friendly, truthful, learned and direct.

Faith at home and in the world

The heart of the family's life was the daily Eucharist and the evening rosary. Maria later wrote of the children, "We brought them up in the faith, so that they might know and love God." Pope John Paul II recalled that the couple liked to teach the children to look at everything "from the roof up."

Luigi gave his free time to Catholic organizations. From 1916 he worked with the Catholic scouts of the ASCI, led the Roma V troop, and in 1919 founded with a friend a Sunday youth group at the Basilica of Santa Pudenziana that became the Roma XX scout troop; he led it until 1923. He served in Catholic Action and the Civic Committees, and he volunteered as a brancardier, a stretcher-bearer, for the UNITALSI trains that carried the sick to Lourdes and Loreto. Maria, a Franciscan tertiary and a trained Red Cross nurse, rode the same trains. During the Second World War, by the EWTN account, their apartment in Rome sheltered refugees.

Luigi died of a heart attack in Rome, on Via Depretis, on November 9, 1951. Maria lived fourteen more years, wrote a book about their married life, L'ordito e la trama (The Warp and the Weft), and died on August 25, 1965, at Serravalle di Bibbiena in Tuscany.

The beatification of Luigi and Maria

Pope John Paul II beatified Luigi and Maria together in St. Peter's Basilica on October 21, 2001, the twentieth anniversary of his exhortation on the family, Familiaris Consortio. Three of their children were present. He called it "the first beatification of a married couple" and said that the path of holiness lived together as a couple "is possible, beautiful, extraordinarily fruitful, and fundamental for the good of the family, the Church and society."

• Approved: a miracle attributed to their joint intercession was recognized before the beatification. We have not found a reliable published account of it, so we leave the details out.

After the beatification their remains were moved to the crypt of the Shrine of Our Lady of Divine Love in Rome, where they rest together.

Symbols of Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi in art

Luigi and Maria lived in the age of photography, and their images come from family photographs. Devotional images almost always show them together, as husband and wife, often in their wedding clothes of 1905 or in middle age. Other details:

• Luigi in a dark suit, often with spectacles, the dress of a Roman professional;
• Maria with a rosary, for the evening prayer that held the family together;
• Their four children, sometimes in the habits of the priests and religious three of them became.

Feast day and prayer

We keep the feast of Blessed Luigi and Blessed Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi on November 25, their wedding anniversary. Their tomb is in the crypt of the Shrine of Divine Love. See also the Martins, the first spouses canonized together, on Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, and our feast day calendar.

We know of no traditional prayer to them that we can quote. Let us ask them to pray for married couples, for engaged couples preparing for marriage, for parents raising children in the faith, and for families in trouble. Blessed Luigi and Blessed Maria, you made your home a place of prayer; pray for our families. Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi, pray for us.