A permanent deacon advances toward sainthood

Thanks to Deacon Michael Weaver for pointing this out, from the pages of The Deacon magazine:

A permanent deacon from Brazil made a significant step toward canonization June 20, when Pope Leo XIV signed a decree formally recognizing Deacon João Luiz Pozzobon’s life of heroic virtue.

João Luiz Pozzobon was born in 1904 in southern Brazil, where he married, opened a small shop and raised seven children.

In his 40s, he became a devoted member of the Apostolic Movement of Schoenstatt and initiated a campaign to encourage devotion to Our Lady. Pozzobon personally carried an image of Our Lady to thousands of homes, schools, hospitals and prisons, traveling more than 87,000 miles over the course of 35 years. His work continues today through Schoenstatt’s international Pilgrim Mother Campaign.

More about him:

João Luiz Pozzobon is considered by many to be the “apostle of the new evangelization” because he spread the faith through the Pilgrim Mother Campaign of Schoenstatt. He dedicated his life to bringing the image of the Blessed Mother into homes, visiting families, the sick, and communities, and inspiring many to live the Gospel.

Pozzobon changed Schoenstatt forever by giving it its missionary face through the Pilgrim Mother Campaign, and he changed the world by filling it with thousands of capable and willing missionaries who carry the graces of the Schoenstatt Shrine to the ends of the earth so that Christ may be born anew…

“When I saw that the visits of the Pilgrim Mother to families were bearing so much fruit, I couldn’t just stop…” A comment by Don Joao, often recounted by Hermann Arendes, companion and ally of the “poor pilgrim.” The visits with the images of the Mother Thrice Admirable were actually intended as a kind of novena in preparation for November 1, 1950, the day of the proclamation of the dogma of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven.

How many other interesting things could Joao Luis Pozzobon have done since November 2? What would have become of Schoenstatt and the Church if he had considered the goal he had achieved as the end point? Thanks to his fidelity to the work he had begun, nourished by observing real life as the voice of God, we now have the Campaign and a growing missionary awareness in large parts of the Schoenstatt Family.

Wikipedia notes that he was ordained a deacon in 1972. On the morning of 27 June 1985, Deacon John Pozzobon was killed when he was hit by a truck in the middle of a thick fog in Santa Maria while on his way to the Shrine of Our Lady of Schoenstatt to attend Mass, as he did every day. He was 80 years old.