Clelia Merloni

Venerable Clelia Merloni
Foundress of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Religious
Born	(1861-03-10)10 March 1861 Forlì, Kingdom of Italy
Died	21 October 1930(1930-10-21) (aged 69) Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Patronage	Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Clelia Merloni (10 March 1861 – 21 November 1930) was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Merloni was destined to follow her father into the business world but renounced his anti-religious sentiment and instead went down the religious path. Internal complications led to Merloni's fall from grace and she went into self-imposed exile where she received a dispensation to break from her religious vows. She later rejoined the congregation as a nun not long before her death.

The beatification process commenced in 1990 under Pope John Paul II and she was titled as a Servant of God. Pope Francis confirmed her heroic virtue on 21 December 2016 and named her as Venerable.

Clelia Merloni was born on 10 March 1861 in Forlì to Gioacchino Merloni and Teresa Brandinelli. She was baptized mere hours after her birth in the diocesan cathedral of Santa Croce from Bishop Pietro Paolo Trucchi.

Merloni's mother died in 1864 and her maternal grandmother became her guardian. Her father remarried in 1866 to Maria Giovanna Boeri and both her grandmother and stepmother did their best to instill religious values and a love of God in her. Her father became far too engrossed in his work and his rising socio-economic status and this led to him exiting the faith and becoming instead an anti-clerical Freemason.

Despite her frail health her father sought to provide her with the best education that was possible to attain in order to prepare her for following him in his business. She attended a private school in her town where she learnt basic skills such as reading and mathematics while also learning sewing and piano skills.

Merloni began to demonstrate signs that her father's business ambitions were not intended for her and due to conflict of this nature her father began to grow suspicious of Merloni's grandmother and the things she was attempting to instill in his daughter – it led to Merloni's grandmother being forced out of the house. The situation became aggravated when marriage struggles saw Merloni's stepmother leave the household to live with other relatives. She often fled to her room to do penance for her father's misdeeds and wore a pebble in her shoe to offer her sufferings for her father's withdrawal from the faith. The death of her father in 1865 – who reconciled to the faith before his death – saw his estate left to Merloni.