The history of abandoned childhood is a painful thread running through the centuries, weaving stories of vulnerability, suffering, and, at times, unexpected hope. In nineteenth-century Italy, this social problem had shocking proportions. Approximately 150,000 children under the age of ten were cared for each year by foundling homes (institutions that took in and raised abandoned infants) and local authorities; between thirty and forty thousand newborns were abandoned annually to public and private “charity.” It was not a phenomenon limited to specific areas but affected every region of Italy. The causes varied and were often difficult to identify because of the secrecy surrounding the abandonments, but contemporaries already recognized the families’ miserable economic conditions as the main reason.
In this context, the foundling home, established to save newborns abandoned in public places, often proved to be a tragic place. Hygiene and healthcare conditions were poor, and the institutions, often reduced to hospitals for illegitimate children, lacked adequate equipment and staff. Public opinion spoke of a veritable “massacre of the innocents” regarding abandoned children and the foundling homes that housed them. Mortality rates were extremely high. The causes included poor hygiene, artificial feeding (not yet perfected and producing poor results), the long journeys infants endured before reaching the institution, and hereditary diseases. Despite debates and proposed legislation, a national law protecting abandoned children was slow to arrive.
Nunzio Sulprizio: from abandonment to sainthood
One figure who personally experienced the drama of this era, although his story slightly predates the last forty years of the nineteenth century, was Nunzio Sulprizio, born in Pescosansonesco (Abruzzo) in 1817. This young man knew how to turn suffering into an instrument of love: “Suffer for the love of God and with joy,” he used to say.
At the age of 6, he was already an orphan of both mother and father. He was therefore entrusted to his maternal grandmother. For Nunzio, his grandmother was a true teacher of life and faith: from her he learned to love the Most Holy Eucharist, priests, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Little Nunzio spoke with Jesus, present in the tabernacle of his parish church, where he would stop to adore Him for long hours, speaking with Jesus and then, upon returning home, the grandmother prayed the Holy Rosary. Upon his grandmother’s death, however, he was entrusted to an uncle who forced him to work in his blacksmith’s workshop: heavy loads, long distances to cover on foot in all weather, but Nunzio did not complain; he thinks of Jesus and begins to offer his suffering to Him. One day, however, a wound on his foot becomes gangrenous. Another uncle, having learned of his situation, entrusts him to Colonel Felice Wochinger, who takes him under his wing: it is therefore decided that Nunzio will move to Naples. He has no luggage with him, the only things he owns are the clothes he is wearing: the Rosary crown on his wrist and a little prayer book to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The colonel is like a kind and caring father to him.
The boy remains at the Incurables Hospital for a long time, where he receives Jesus in the Eucharist for the first time. Here he helps the other patients; he fasts, prays and gives his meal to those who are lonelier and poorer than he is.
After leaving the hospital, but still suffering greatly, he moves in with the colonel, and a beautiful relationship develops between them. On the afternoon of May 5, 1836 Nunzio asks the colonel to receive the sacraments and after two hours exclaims: “See how beautiful the Madonna is!” and gently falls asleep in Christ.
Abandoned childhood today
Today, the problem of abandoned and vulnerable childhood, although taking different forms and occurring in a global context, remains an open challenge: the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN in 1989 and ratified in Italy in 1991, reminds us that protecting children cannot be left solely to the family. Hundreds of thousands of children around the world remain alone because of wars, famines and economic crises. Many are victims of exploitation. UNICEF estimates that around 356 million children worldwide live in extreme poverty, and the pandemic has pushed approximately another 150 million into poverty, depriving them of economic, educational and social resources and burning their future.
The “massacre of the innocents” of the 19th century, with its shocking figures and personal stories of suffering, like Nunzio’s, they still speak to us powerfully. They remind us of childhood’s inherent fragility and society as a whole’s responsibility to protect it. Saint Nunzio Sulprizio, recognized as a role model for young people, shows us how, even in the most adverse conditions, a life can find meaning through love and faith. His personal story, woven into the dramatic reality of abandoned childhood a century ago, resonates today as a warning: children’s vulnerability is a constant that requires our ongoing attention, compassion and concrete action, so that no child is ever again left alone in the world and sees their future “burned”.
