Father Orazio Olivieri della Penna was an adventurous Capuchin missionary and in love with the church he was approaching when he was a young man, after he began severe classical studies who, at about 20 years of age, entered the Monastery of Pietrarubbia. Father Orazio, who had a noble birth, was the last of three brothers who grew up a few steps from the venerated sanctuary of the BV delle Grazie in Pennabilli, who evidently gave the Capuchin a decisive push towards what would be his life as a missionary in Tibet. With these few lines we intend to provide a first approach to what will be revealed on Saturday 21 May, at 10.30, in the Sala San Pietro of the Augustinian Monastery of Pennabilli: attention will go to the portrait, the “true effigy” of Father Orazio who it was found by the nuns of this monastery in a drawer in an environment where it had remained for almost a century. Forgot. But not only that, with the interventions of the various speakers highlighted in the reports. He was called the White Head Lama and this was and remains the recognition made to him for the commitment he deployed in favor of that population with the Capuchin colleagues who shared the hardships with him. Father Orazio is responsible for numerous studies, memories of his stay in Tibet and the first Tibetan dictionary in the Western language consisting of 33,000 words. The rejoicing for Father Orazio and the sharing of what he had done in Tibet brought the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, to Pennabilli twice, the first in 1994 and the second in 2005.

Saturday 21 May 2022, 10.30-12.30

Sala San Pietro, Augustinian Monastery of Pennabilli

HE Mons. Andrea Turazzi, Bishop of the Diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro will speak

Mother Claudia Maiorelli, superior of the community of the Augustinian nuns of Pennabilli

Pier Giorgio Pasini, art historian Elio Marini, president of the Ass.

Orazio della Penna Claudio Cardelli, president of the Italy-Tibet Association

Monica Landini, specializing in missiology and scholar of interreligious dialogue processes

Choir of the Augustinian nuns