Mother Elvira (Rita Agnese) Petrozzi, who founded the Cenacolo Community in 1983 to minister to teen drug addicts, died on August 3 at the age of 86.
The community received diocesan canonical approval in 1998, and the Vatican recognized it as an international association of the faithful in 2009.
“The members of the Community pursue their own personal sanctification by living a strongly Eucharistic and Marian spirituality, in trusting and total abandonment to Divine Providence,” according to the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. “They are committed to the free acceptance of and service towards those who, especially because of drugs and other addictions, live a situation of existential loss.”
“I send my heartfelt greeting to the Cenacolo Community, which has been a place of hospitality and human promotion for 40 years; I bless Mother Elvira, the Bishop of Saluzzo, and all the fraternity and friends,” Pope Francis said on July 16, following his Angelus address. “What you do is good, and it is good that you exist! Thank you!”