On 5 May 2015, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of the decrees informing the faithful that Servants of God Sergio and Domenica Bernardini, husband and wife, have been declared Venerable. The Bernardinis are the third married couple in the history of the Church to receive this title(they were preceded by Blessed Luigi and Blessed Maria Beltrame and St. Louis and St. Zelie Martin.
The Pope said that the Bernardinis are an example to all Christians as to how to live the virtues to a heroic degree within the context of the married life and that they were above all models of how to educate one’s children in a Christian way.
The lives of Sergio and Domenica Bernardini, both well known throughout Italy, were characterized by hard work in the fields (Sergio was a farmer), the practice of the family virtues and above all the Christian education of their numerous offspring.
In fact, the couple had ten children, eight of whom entered the religious life: five daughters became Daughters of St. Paul, one daughter became a Franciscan, and two sons became Capuchins. One of these sons is today the Archbishop Emeritus of Smyrna, Turkey.