World Meeting of Families: Read about first married couple to be beatified by the Catholic Church

During this week’s World Meeting of Families in Rome, relics of the first married couple to be jointly beatified by the Catholic Church can be revered within St. Peter’s Basilica.

Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi are the official patrons of the 10th World Meeting of Families taking place in Rome on June 22-26.

The Italian couple was married for 45 years, suffering two world wars together and fostering their four children’s vocations in service of the Church amid great problems facing Europe.

Both of their sons became priests in the 1930s and went on to concelebrate the beatification Mass of their parents with John Paul II in 2001.

The Beltrame Quattrocchi family’s flat in Rome was used as a haven for fugitives and Italians with Jewish ancestry during the Nazi occupation of Italy in World War II by their eldest son, Father Tarcisio Beltrame, a Benedictine monk, and his younger brother, Father Paolino, a Trappist.

A living relative of the Beltrame Quattrocchi family says that he has documents from the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) confirming the sons’ collaboration in the Resistance movement, which was made even riskier by the fact that the family’s apartment was located right by the headquarters of the German command in Rome.

“If they had been discovered they would have all been immediately shot,” Francesco Beltrame Quattrocchi told EWTN.

The daughters of Beltrame Quattrocchi likewise devotedly served the Church. Stefania, their oldest child, became a nun at a Benedictine abbey in 1927. Enrichetta Beltrame Quattrocchi, the family’s youngest child, was a lay consecrated person who had been given the title of venerable.

‘Extraordinarily rich spiritual life’

At the root of their children’s vocations and the courageous witness of the Beltrame Quattrocchi family during times of trial was the rich spiritual foundation within Luigi and Maria’s marriage.

When St. John Paul II beatified Luigi and Maria in 2001, he said that the blessed married couple “lived an ordinary life in an extraordinary way.”

“Among the joys and anxieties of a normal family, they knew how to live an extraordinarily rich spiritual life. At the center of their life was the daily Eucharist as well as devotion to the Virgin Mary, to whom they prayed every evening with the rosary,” he said.

Luigi and Maria lived lives of heroic virtue together as spouses and parents. The couple was married in the Basilica of St. Mary Major on Nov. 25, 1905. Luigi was 25 years old and Maria was 21. A plaque commemorating their marriage can be seen in the basilica’s Corsini chapel today.

After being married in Rome’s largest Marian basilica, the couple later entrusted their family and all their children to Our Lady of Divine Love.

“This couple lived married love and service to life in the light of the Gospel and with great human intensity. With full responsibility they assumed the task of collaborating with God in procreation, dedicating themselves generously to their children, to teach them, guide them and direct them to discovering his plan of love,” John Paul II said.

“From this fertile spiritual terrain sprang vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life, which shows how, with their common roots in the spousal love of the Lord, marriage, and virginity may be closely connected and reciprocally enlightening.”

While raising their four children, Luigi worked as a lawyer, and Maria was a catechist and the author of several books on education.

Through their involvement with Catholic Action, the pair also created classes for engaged couples on Catholic marriage preparation.

The family also helped the injured and struggling families during World War I. Some young individuals who wanted to join the clergy or the monastic life were also financially assisted by them.

At the age of 71, Luigi passed away after a heart attack. After the passing of her beloved husband, Maria continued to serve her family and the Church with steadfast devotion for an additional 14 years.

Several more of the blessed couple’s personal possessions will be on exhibit at the Paul VI Hall at the World Meeting of Families in Rome in addition to the first-class relics of them, which can be found in front of the main altar in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The objects reflect how the couple’s spiritual lives and the love they had in their marriage were entwined. The Bible that the couple would read together is on display, as well as the engagement ring that Luigi gave to Maria.

The little holy card of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei that Maria gave to Luigi prior to their wedding is another item that Luigi has cherished for more than 40 years.

In Rome’s Sanctuary of Divine Love, the beatified couple is interred together.