Maria Orsola Bussone

Maria Orsola Bussone (2 October 1954 – 10 July 1970) was an Italian Roman Catholic and a member from the Focolare Movement. Bussone's involvement in her adolescence in parish activities led her to Catholic Action as well as to other movements that she served as an active participant; she learnt the guitar and liked sports and music which she engaged in with her close friends. But those who knew her attested to her deep spiritual desires which she found sated in the Focolore Movement that she first came into contact with in the late 1960s. Bussone desired to act as a vessel for the goodness of God and desired that He would "…use me as He wants". Bussone died in an accident in 1970 and there were immediate calls to launch a process for beatification due to the impact she had made on local communities.

The cause for her beatification - which saw her declared as a Servant of God - commenced in mid-1997 under Pope John Paul II. On 18 March 2015 Pope Francis declared her to be Venerable after confirming her life of heroic virtue.

Life
Maria Orsola Bussone was born on 2 October 1954 in Vallo Torinese in Turin in the home of her maternal grandmother at 10:30pm as the first of two children to Umberto and Luigina; her brother Giorgio (b. 7.5.1957) followed. Her father owned a car repair office and her mother was a basic tailor (a "sarta"). Father Giuseppe Michelotti baptized her on 10 October.

Bussone attended kindergarten under the Cottolengo Sisters at Monasterolo Casotto and was at school in Vallo from 1 October 1960 until 21 June 1965. Bussone made her First Communion on 23 April 1961 and received her Confirmation on 11 July 1965.

In this time she loved the pop music of the 1960s and served as an active participant in the Catholic Action movement and the Maria Goretti Youth Group at the San Secondo Martire parish; she was also interested in peaceful student protests and viewed them as a democratic tool. Her love for sports and nature (activities such as skiing and skating) was also noted and she and her friends often spent time doing various sporting activities. High school began in autumn 1965 and concluded in summer 1968 (at the Federico Albert Institute in Lanzo under the nuns) when she began school in another place (in October 1968 at the Galileo Ferraris State High School in Cirié travelling there via bus). In 1969 she won a national competition for an essay entitled "The European Community" and she was rewarded with a trip to Brussels as well as to Strasbourg and Luxembourg. In 1968 she began to learn the guitar and to sing at a music school in Turin.

In 1966 she attended a retreat in Lanzo and the preacher Vincenzo Chiarle gave a sermon that affected Bussone and inspired her to attend similar retreats to broaden her spiritual horizons. Bussone attended a congress of the Focolare Movement for the first time from 3–5 June 1967 in Rocca di Papa and it had a profound effect on her to the point that she desired to join them as a means of strengthening her own faith and her own activism. En route home from that congress she and her friends stopped over in Loppiano in Florence. Since her childhood she attended with great participation to the activities in her parish and could be present to several meetings of children and adolescents in the Gen Movement which was the Youth Branch to the Focolare Movement. The first one she attended was in April 1968 at the invitation of Father Vincenzo Chiarle. The charism of that movement impressed her to the point that in a letter sent to Chiara Lubich - the founder - said that she wanted to inspire all her life unconditional love towards other people letting "God use me as He wants" as a tool to bring others closer to Him.

Seven months into 1970 she - who liked to sing with other adolescents in her parish and liked the guitar - went on a trip near Venice as an animator in the parish school-camp located at Ca' Savio alongside her brother Giorgio. It was during her time there that a trivial accident caused her death; she died of an electrical discharge while she dried her hair with a defective hair-dryer as she prepared to attend Mass. Her cousin Marisa entered the room around 8:00pm to find Bussone on the ground and inert though artificial respiration and heart massage failed to prevent her death. Bishop Livio Maritano presided over her funeral on 13 July which saw 30 priests attend as well as more than 2000 people from 50 different parishes. Since 2 October 2004 her remains have been housed at the San Secondo Martire parish church.

Beatification process
The beatification process commenced under Pope John Paul II on 17 July 2017 after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the edict of "nihil obstat" (nothing against to the cause) and titled Bussone as a Servant of God. Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini inaugurated the diocesan process of investigation on 26 May 1996 while the process reached a successful conclusion under Severino Poletto on 17 December 2000. The C.C.S. received all the documents that came from the Turin process and validated it on 15 June 2001 prior to receiving the Positio dossier from the postulation officials in 2003 for further evaluation.

Theologians advising the congregation met to examine the Positio's contents and voiced their approval to the cause on 17 September 2013 while the C.C.S. members themselves later approved the cause as well on 17 March 2015. Bussone was declared to be Venerable on 18 March 2015 after Pope Francis confirmed that she had lived a life of heroic virtue.

Failed miracle
Bussone's beatification all depends on one miracle being confirmed which often is a healing that science cannot explain. Such a case had been investigated in the diocese of its origin and that process received C.C.S. validation on 27 January 2006. But the supposed miracle could not be investigated until Bussone had been declared as Venerable. The medical board investigated this miracle sometime in 2015 but did not issue a unanimous verdict as is required ruling the healing not to be a miracle.

The current postulator for this cause is Dr. Waldery Hilgeman.

John Paul II's remarks
Pope John Paul II - in a speech to Focolarini followers gathered in the Stadio Olimpico in Turin on 3 September 1988 said: "You quote Maria Orsola, a girl from the area of Lanzo that told to her parish priest: “I would even arrive to give my life, in order to make young people understand how beautiful is to love God!” And God, when She was sixteen years old took her as She had promised. Well, I notice that in this (religious) company of yours there is more than a defense: there is the choice to let grow one's love towards God, in absolute terms, talking directly with God, accepting to make a gift of our own's life…"