SPINELLI, FRANCESCO. – Priest, founder of the Adoratrici del S.mo Sacramento, b. in Milan on 14 Apr. 1853, d. at Rivolta d’Adda (diocese of Cremona) on 6 Feb. 1911.
Soon after his ordination as priest in Bergamo (1875), during a trip to Rome while praying in S. Maria Maggiore, he felt a strong interior impulse to found a congregation of sisters who would adore the Most Holy Sacrament in reparation for the outrages it suffered. Returning to Bergamo, while preaching at S. Gervasio d’Adda, he met the Servant of God Caterina Comensoli, who was already meditating the same design, and in 1882 founded the Congregation of the Adoratrici, which, however, was to combine adoration with works of apostolate.
After the first excellent successes, the considerable debts, incurred without any fault on his part, for the founding of other houses obliged him in 1889 to separate from the Institute and leave the diocese. Warmly welcomed by the bishop of Cremona, he was invited to serve as spiritual director at the house he had founded at Rivolta d’Adda, where in 1895 he established a new congregation of Adoratrici, entirely separate from that of Bergamo, but preserving the purpose, the Rules, and the habit of the first foundation. The trials and contradictions suffered by Fr Spinelli drew down heavenly blessings on the new Institute, with the ever-growing establishment of other houses. The cause of his beatification was introduced in Rome on 25 Jan. 1952.