He had something nice to say to everyone: “There was a lot of wind today. We had 50 cm of snow. It wasn’t possible to celebrate the other three Masses. It was only possible to be happy with things as they were.” Following the process of canonization that was begun in 2007, the first phase, the diocesan phase will close with a solemn Mass on 21 January in the Dome Cathedral of Parma.

Dario Porta was born in the Italian province of Parma on 4 December 1930 and was ordained to the priesthood on 19 June 1955. His life had been guided by the Gospel. He was intelligent, an acute observer of people and things, a careful listener of people more than of their positions. His encounter with the spirituality of the Focolare Movement enriched his choice of God and planted in him a strong need for communion with his fellow priests and with everyone else. These words spoken by him reveal his spiritual profile: “God made me realize that in the end the only thing that we will have to have done will be to have loved our neighbour.”

Love of neighbor became like an obsession for Father Dario. Chiara Lubich herself was so struck by his exemplary and simple life that she spoke about him several times, offering him as the model of someone who had reached union with God through the spirituality of the focolarini, which is precisely love of neighbor. “He’s a very simple person,” she said in 2003, “but he only sees one thing: his neighbor. ‘I always loved my neighbors.’ This is the phrase that should always be on the lips of focolarini. . . . This way of doing is life-changing! So simple, but the simple are inspired by God, and Father Dario was a person truly inspired by God.”

His love that always reached out towards others was rooted in a deep interior life. Father Dario was also capable of a solitude that was filled with God: “By accident I woke up an hour early. . . so I can stay with You in peace.” “To be contemplatives. . . there is only one thing we must do: love You in each neighbour.”

A parish priest in many diocesan communities from 1955 until 1996, in the mid-1960’s a special form of communion began to mature between Father Dario and the diocesan priests of the Focolare Movement because of their decision to put in common their experiences of the Word and of their personal relationship with God. From 1971 to 1980 he lived the common life with a group of diocesan priests in a focolare: “These communities with Jesus in the midst are worth more than all the cathedrals in the world,” he wrote in his diary, referring to the presence of Jesus promised to those who are united in his name (see Mt 18:20.)

He was a teacher and friend of children and youths, particularly active and sensitive to the new poor, especially immigrants. In Autumn of 1995, as he was about to tell the bishop of his willingness to go to a mission in Brazil, the first signs of the illness began to appear that would eventually lead to his death. Father Dario died on Holy Thursday, 4 April 1996. His simple life was lived in an extraordinary way: making every moment a total gift of himself to God and to the neighbor who was before him.

19 June 2007 the Bishop of Parma, Bishop Cesare Bonicelli announced the opening of the canonical cause of beatification and canonization, following the request of 680 people who knew Father Dario personally. Then the work was begun of verifying the heroic virtues of Father Dario. The historical commission gathered a large amount of documentation and the tribunal interviewed more than thirty witnesses. Their findings highlighted the figure of Father Dario Porta as a priest for today’s Church and today’s society.

The Bishop of Parma, Enrico Solmi, has called the city and the diocese together for a thanksgiving celebration for the exemplary life of Father Dario, on 21 January in the Cathedral.

Bibliography: Dario Porta, Testimone dell’Amore gratuito, compiled by Piero Viola, Parma 1996