article by Andrea Bernardini from the website of the diocese of Pisa
Entering Francesco Bortolini's house, the first thing that strikes you is the large image of Toniolo, a bronze relief commissioned to the artist Carlo Bagliana, to remember and be grateful to the one who saved his life 6 years ago. Mario Bortolini (64 years old) and Elvira Padoin (62 years old) married in 1971 and had three children: Cinzia (forty years old), Francesco (39 years old) and Andrea (twenty years old). Cinzia, married for 15 years to Andreolla Diotisalvi, is the mother of Giorgia (13) and Serena (6), both students of a Catholic school in Pieve di Soligo; Francesco lives alone a few meters from the family home; Andrea still lives at home with dad and mom. The three sons together manage the small engineering company inherited from their father, a company where Francesco started working immediately after his professional studies.
The episode that will forever mark his life took place on the night between Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 June 2006, in Barbisano, a fraction of Pieve di Soligo, during the beer festival. «Who knows why - his mother Elvira tells“ Toscana Oggi ”- that night, Francesco decides to climb a fence. A flag stands on top of one of the poles: perhaps he wanted to take it, just for fun. Unfortunately, however, he loses his balance and falls to the ground from a height of about four meters. The hedge below softens the blow, but not enough to prevent him from banging his head violently. Francesco, rescued immediately, is taken to the Santa Maria dei Battuti hospital in Conegliano in intensive care, placed in a pharmacological coma and declared unrecoverable ».
The situation worsens day by day and the life of Francis is increasingly hanging by a thread, so the parish priest, Don Giuseppe Nadal, proposes to start a novena to the venerable Toniolo and gives a small image with a relic - a thread of the blanket by Toniolo - which on Wednesday 7 June is placed on the back of the boy's bed. Sunday 11 June, when the whole community of Pieve is invited to pray in a particular way for the venerable Toniolo, Francis begins to wake up and, after a short time, he is discharged from the hospital in good condition. For medical personnel, family and friends, this can only be a prodigious event. Francis, moved, recognizes the intervention of a heavenly hand that saved him, strengthening his faith and his religious practice. Having known what had happened, Mons. Massimo Magagnin, vice-postulator of the cause of beatification of Toniolo, collects the voluminous documentation, then examined by the diocesan ecclesiastical court, which recognizes the extraordinary nature of the healing. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints deepens the episode, while a positive judgment comes from a commission of five doctors and from the theological commission. Finally, the plenary of bishops and cardinals presents the whole process to Benedict XVI, who states: "It is a miracle for the intercession of the venerable and soon blessed Giuseppe Toniolo". "Before this proclamation - writes the vice-postulator in" La nostra Pieve ", the parish news bulletin of the Cathedral of Pieve di Soligo - we spent many moments together in prayer to Toniolo, especially every 7th of the month that commemorates his birth (7 March ) and death (October 7) ".
