At two o’clock, on the morning of the third of February 2021, Fr Valerio Fenoglio CRS, Somacan Priest at the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary, Maputo, Mozambique, returned to his father’s house and passed into Eternal Life.
Fr Valerio was admitted into hospital in Maputo on 14 January after it was discovered that he had both COVID-19 and Malaria.
Born on 14 July 1943 in Villanova Mondovi, Italy, Fr Valerio made his profession of vows in 1960 and was ordained into the priesthood by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Most of Fr Valerio’s life was one of a missionary, contributing to the opening of new communities and expanding the Somascan Order.
Although his last seven years had been spent as a missionary in Mozambique, Fr Valerio spent many years previously in Nigeria, Australia, the Philippines, India and Spain.
In 2004, Fr Valerio started a new community in Perth, Australia, along with the late Fr Giovanni Fontana CRS and Fr Johnson Malayil CRS.
His love for Liturgy, truth and beauty soon reshaped this first Australian Somascan parish of St Jerome’s in Spearwood as one sees looking at the beautiful stained-glass window which Fr Valerio designed along with the side-chapel that it beautifies.
His witness and faithfulness fostered this thriving community and it created fertile ground for which bore much fruit in the form of new communities and vocations.
Eternal Rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.