The Lodi brothers : 9/29/1944 --- 9/29/2006
Two brothers, former students of the Salesian Oratory in Bologna.
Vincenzo Lodi, born 15/1/1921, and Don Giuseppe Lodi, born 22/10/1922, lived in Bologna on Via Mazza, in the Salesian Parish of the Sacred Heart, governed by Don Antonio Gavinelli, and attended the Salesian Oratory.
Both on 7/12/1946 were granted the degree “”Dottore Honoris Causa“” by the University of Bologna.
Vincenzo Lodi, a FUCI university student, collaborated with parish priest Fr. Gavinelli.
Fr. Giuseppe Lodi - remembered by all as Fr. Pino - was a member of Catholic Action and was ordained subdeacon on 3/25/1944 along with Fr. Mauro Fornasari and Fr. Libero Nanni.
In the summer of 1944 the Lodi family left Bologna and moved to Gaggio Montano.
On September 28, 1944, a German unit retreating to the mountains of our Apennines had a firefight in the locality of Ronchidos di Gaggio Montano with some partisans of the “”Giustizia e Libertà“” brigade.
In retaliation, from 9/29 to 4/10/1944 , the Nazis killed all the civilians they managed to capture, including the Lodi brothers and their parents.
Sixty-nine people were murdered, including old men, women and children. One was only three months old. Then the corpses were set on fire.
After the front line moved further north, some villagers climbed the mountain and tracked down Don Pino's rosary beads, from which, however, the section with the crucifix had been torn off as a final outrage against religion.
Currently what remains of the rosary is kept in a shrine inside the church of Santa Maria Goretti in Bologna.
Also this year (2006), as it has been for some time, a Holy Mass will be celebrated on September 29 at 10 a.m. in the parish church of Gaggio Montano in suffrage of the victims of the Nazi reprisal.
Five priests will concelebrate at the altar, including Fr Gaetano Tanaglia, who was Fr Pino Lodi's comrade-in-arms in the Bologna Seminary.
After the Mass, flowers will be laid at the foot of the plaque placed in the Cason dell'Alta shrine in Ronchidos, and at the nearby little church dedicated to Our Lady of the Emigrants, prayers will be said for peace.