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Clemente Emilio Riva (1922 – 1999) by Domenico Mariani1 (Translated by J.Anthony Dewhirst) Clemente Emilio Riva was born at dawn on the 5 June 1922 at Medolago (BG) — a village 4 kilometres from Sotto il Monte and 18 kilometres from Bergamo. His parents were Giuseppe and Angela Ferrari. He was the second born in a family of nine children. (His two sisters, Rina and Adelina, are still living). He was baptised the same evening in the parochial church of S. Maria Assunta by the parish priest Don Santo Bonomi, and he would be confirmed in this church, at the age of 14, by Bishop Adriano Bernareggi on 27 May 1936. The family was a poor one and lived by the work of their father, Giuseppe, who was a farmer and share-cropper, (he died at the age of 72 on 21 June 1960), and through the good domestic administration of their mother, (who died at the age of 64 on 5 March, 1961). Clemente would always vividly remember his parents with gratitude, admiration and affection. Young Riva went to the country elementary school and occasionally helped on the farm, but he soon showed a desire to become a priest. This vocation would become clearer when he heard that his cousin had entered the seminary. He was now twelve years old. So in June 1935, after a brief preparation with the curate Don Luigi Rizzoli, he presented himself at the diocesan seminary in order to take the entrance exam to the primary grammar school, which he failed. This is the reason, as well as financial difficulty, why the Riva family turned to the Rosminians who had a small seminary at Pusiano. This failure was often recalled by Monsignor Riva and he reminded the authorities of the seminary of Bergamo after he had become Bishop. He was accepted among the aspirants at Pusiano on 29 September 1935. He and his father presented themselves before the Rector, Don Pio Bolla. He would spend four years of study and prayer at Pusiano,with excellent teachers and educators. On 15 July 1939 he arrived at Calvario di Domossola to begin his novitiate. Sixteen companions entered with him. The Master of Novices was Father Carlo Pagani from Milan. A novice’s life, especially in those days, was one of total retirement, contemplation and work. But Riva began to keep a diary in which he wrote about events which especially made an impression on him (ecclesiastical and political); for example the death of Don Orione (19 March 1940), the entrance of Italy into the war (30 June 1940), the first Masses of some of his brethren (30 June 1940), and receiving the cassock (8 September 1940). On 14 June 1941 after a severe dressing down by Father Socius, he wrote: ‘Saints are made with the chisel, not with the brush’, a remark which tells of his determination in offering his life to God. On 1 July 1941, the feast of the Most Precious Blood and the anniversary of the death of his Founder, he took his first vows at the hands of the provincial, Father Giovanni Pusineri. In August he and five others left for Rovereto where the Rector, Don Luigi Sala was waiting for them. Riva immediately took his exams for entrance into the second class of the town’s Teacher’s Training College. He spent three years there and, on 15 June 1944, obtained a very good teacher’s qualification. On 10 September 1944 he took his final vows at Calvario at the hands of the Father General and noted that these were hard times. There was little to eat, cities were 1 bombed, his brother Angelo had been called to the front, travelling was hazardous and full of dangers. With the fall of Fascism, the Rosminians were seen in a bad light; their General, Father Bozzetti, was arrested and imprisoned (4 November–22 December 1944). Riva noted everything, he suffered, prayed and co-operated. He spent the scholastic year 1944–1945 at Collegio Rosmini, Stresa, as an elementary teacher. It was here that he began to read the works of Rosmini at first hand and — following the suggestion of Father Bozzetti — he perused Gli Universali (in eleven volumes) by Pietro Maria Ferrè, Bishop of Casale Monferrato. At the end of September 1945, he departed for Rome where he studied philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Lateran University (then PUL). And he had the good fortune to enjoy, at home, the teaching of the Rector, Father Hugh Honan, an astute philosopher, and Father Giuseppe Bozzetti, who soon recognised Riva’s fine intellectual ability and made him his pupil. Apart from the lectures of Father Bozzetti at the Università statale della Sapienza, Riva attended conferences in various cultural centres and involved himself in social and political interests. He would read newspapers and reviews, ecclesiastical or otherwise, and acquired an encyclopaedic knowledge — especially Rosminian — of the Capital. These were precious years of an all-round education. He achieved his doctorate in theology on 21 June 1951 at the Pontifical Lateran University. On 24 March 1953 he was ordained priest by Monsignor E. Tonna, in the church of Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore in the Piazza Navona. On this solemn occasion he noted: ‘I feel more afraid and anxious than enthusiastic and joyful’. In September he was made Prefect of Scholastics at Porta Latina. He continued the study of theology, participated in conferences and came ever closer to the young people of Fuci2 to whom he was appointed assistant chaplain. 20 May 1953 was an important day for Don Riva. He defended his doctoral thesis on, Il problema dell’origine dell’anima intellettiva secondo A.Rosmini3 in the presence of Father General, Fr Hugh Honan, his brethren, priests and friends. The thesis was a daring and sensitive one, because it implied that the genuine interpretation of Rosmini’s thought was not correctly expressed in propositions 20, 21, 22, 24 condemned by the Holy Office in 1888. But Riva defended the orthodoxy of his Founder well, and put forward a convincing historical, doctrinal and critical argument. He earned the applause of all the examiners, and the maximum number of votes, together with the right to have his work printed. Father Bozzetti died, almost suddenly, on 27 May 1956 and Don Riva felt the lack of a loving father and great supporter. In fact, in September 1957, in spite of the numerous tasks which Riva had taken on in Fuci, the new Father General decreed him to Calvario di Domodossola, as Prefect of Scholastics and teacher of dogmatic theology. For three years there he devoted himself to zealous youth groups and conferences in north Italy: Stresa, Verbania, Novara, Milano, Rovereto, Bolzano, Venezia and elsewhere. On 12 September 1959 he was appointed ecclesiastical consultor to the Catholic Jurists and central vice-chaplain of the Graduate Movement of Catholic Action. On the 9 September 1960 he returned finally to Rome, first as confessor to San Carlo al Corso and then in 1966 as Rector of the Basilica. On 27 July 1963 he took his vows of spiritual coadjutor at the hands of Father General, which, according to the Constitutions of Father Rosmini, binds us definitively to the Institute and frees us from any ambition, by the promise ‘not to seek, any dignity or office, whether within the Institute or outside it’.4 On 18 September 1963 on the recommencement of the work of Vatican II, the director of 2 catholic journalists asked Don Riva to take on the job of Consultor to the Italian Catholic Press at the Council. So Don Riva began to write articles on the work of the Council. These would be collected later into four volumes published by Morcelliana. In September 1964 he was made ecclesiastical advisor to the Italian Embassy to the Holy See, and in October he began this work meticulously and competently. Father General also wished to avail himself of his help and on 20 February 1967 he asked him to take his Presbyter Vows in the Institute. (This is the fourth vow ‘of special obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff regarding missions together with the promise ‘to be watchful that there is no relaxation over the poverty which the Rule of Life prescribes’.5 He made him his Assistant, and, on 7 October 1971, his Vicar of Intellectual Charity. Meanwhile Don Riva, with his pastoral charity, involved himself more and more in the nerve centre of the Diocese of Rome, (in February 1970 he was a member of the Priests’ Council of the City), and in the awareness of the socio-religious situation of the Capital, which has its positive activities but also its evil ones. Alongside Cardinal Ugo Poletti, Vicar of the Pope for the diocese, his auxiliary Bishops, parish priests and the more qualified lay people Don Riva prepared the famous diocesan meeting on the Responsibilities of Christians faced with the expectations of Justice and Charity of the City of Rome which was held at the Lateran in February 1974. It is a thorough and sincere examination of the conscience of the local church. It is a blunt condemnation of the evils which paralyse it and an honest self examination what each — both as an individual and as a member of a group, and of social activities — can do to get rid of the evils and improve the situation; and finally to sow the seeds of conversion with a view to reversing these trends. The meeting was well covered in the newspapers and the media. The contribution of Don Riva (22 pages) was much appreciated and was published not only in the diocesan Review and in Regno, but in many other pastoral magazines, and it became a book printed by Edizioni Leoniane (1975).

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