Positio of Bp. Orestes Marengo Presented in Rome

"Positio super virtutibus" of Bp. Orestes Marengo, SDB, Presented in Rome

(ANS – Vatican City – June 3, 2024) – On May 31, the volume of the Positio super Vita, Virtutibus et Fama Sanctitatis of the Servant of God Orestes Marengo, Salesian Bishop, was delivered to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican.

The Positio had as relator Fr. Szczepan Tadeusz Praskiewicz, OCD, as postulator Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, postulator general of the causes of the saints of the Salesian Family, and as collaborator Dr. Matteo Penati. Structural elements of the “Positio” – which presents in an articulated and in-depth way the entire documentary and witness evidence apparatus concerning the virtuous life of the Servant of God – are: a brief presentation by the relator; the Informatio super virtutibus, that is, the theological part in which the virtuous life of the Servant of God is demonstrated; 2 summaries with the witness and documentary evidence; the biography based on documents; the last sessions and the iconographic apparatus.

After delivery, the Positio will be examined by the theological consultants of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints and then studied by the cardinals and bishops of the dicastery. These stages of study and evaluation will allow Pope Francis, in the event of a positive outcome, to declare Bishop Orestes Marengo “Venerable.” It will then take a miracle attributed to his intercession to open the way to beatification.

This news has aroused great joy in the diocese of Alba and in Diano d’Alba (Cuneo), the birthplace of the Servant of God, where for some years a group of people has been dedicated to promoting Bp. Marengo’s cause, who stood out for his apostolic zeal as a missionary in Northeast India.

Orestes Marengo was born on August 29, 1906 in Diano d’Alba, the son of Lorenzo and Agostina Montaldo, farmers. He had a younger brother, Caesar, and three older siblings: Maria Agnese, who later became Sister of Charity of Santa Maria Antida Thouret; Joseph, who became a diocesan priest; and Natale.

Attending the village church – whose parish priest, Father Giuseppe Falletti, had been a friend and admirer of St. John Bosco – and studying in the school run by the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, little Orestes had contact with varied Salesian situations, which he further understood once he moved to Valdocco as a 13-year-old, to the Salesian high school, meeting the Salesians of the first generation there.

Beginning his novitiate in Foglizzo in 1923, in December of the same year he left with some companions for Assam, in Northeast India, where he completed his spiritual and intellectual formation, professing his vows on January 21, 1925, and perpetual vows on January 21, 1928.

While having pastoral experience at the side of his confrere Constantine Vendrame, today a Servant of God, on February 24, 1932, he received the diaconate, and on April 2 of the same year the priesthood. Engaged without sparing himself in the activity of the first evangelization, in 1936, just 4 years after priestly ordination, he became master of novices and in 1940, director of the philosophical studentate of the mission.

In 1951, the new diocese of Dibrugarh in the state of Manipur was created, Fr. Orestes was appointed its first bishop. After 28 years, he returned to Italy for the first time, and on December 27, 1951, he received episcopal ordination in the basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin. In 1962 he returned to Italy for the second time, to participate in the first session of the 2d Vatican Council.

He was bishop of Dibrugarh until 1964, when the Holy See appointed him ordinary of the new diocese of Tezpur in the State of Assam, whose foundations he laid, and in 1969 he handed over his government to a new Indian bishop, given the postconciliar directives inviting the appointment of locally born bishops. At the same time, for 3 years he helped the new bishop in pastoral work, generously serving the faithful.

In 1972 the Holy See entrusted him with the care of the organization of a new diocese, that of Tura in the state of Meghalaya, bordering Assam. He arrived there on July 22, 1972, and carried out his ministry as apostolic administrator until January 2, 1978, when, by then 72, he resigned from the administration of the diocese, remaining there, however, as long as his strength allowed him, as a missionary very committed to pastoral care.

At the behest of the superiors, in 1992 he settled at Bosco Mount, headquarters of the Salesian novitiate in Tura, to be for the indigenous novices what the first Salesian disciples of Don Bosco had been for him in Italy, especially in Valdocco,.

From 1993 he began to have health problems and was hospitalized several times: he had to undergo a hernia operation, suffered from diabetes and phlebitis, had respiratory and gastric problems. However, he committed much of his time to prayer, preparing for the final meeting with the Lord, which took place in the early afternoon of July 30, 1998.