Fifth of eleven children Raffaele, an engineer and mathematician, and Silvia Valle, a descendant of Neapolitan and Spanish nobility, had a difficult childhood due to health problems and family financial constraints.
In 1896, with the separation of his parents, Father Dolindo (whose name refers to "pain") was initiated with his brother Elio at the Apostolic School for Missionary Priests, and three years later was accepted into the novitiate.
He took his religious vows on June 1, 1901, and two years later unsuccessfully asked to be sent to China as a missionary.
After his ordination on June 24, 1905, at the age of almost 23, he was appointed professor of seminarians at the Apostolic School and teacher of Gregorian chant. He moved briefly to Taranto and then to the seminary at Molfetta, where he taught and worked to reform the seminary itself.
On October 29, 1907, he was summoned back to Naples and ordered to stop dealing with the case. Accused of being a "formal and dogmatic heretic", he went to Rome to submit to the judgment of the Holy Office: after four months of investigation, in which Ruotolo did not retract, he was suspended and forced to undergo psychiatric examinations. These showed that he was sane.
On April 13, 1908, he was summoned to Naples by the superiors of the congregation, who subjected him to an exorcism.
He moved to Rossano in Calabria; on August 8, 1910, a request for a review of his suspension had a positive outcome, and after two and a half years of suspension he was rehabilitated. A second time, in December 1911, he was summoned to Rome and then sent back to Naples in 1912. Tried in a canonical trial in 1921, he was convicted and again removed. He was finally rehabilitated on July 17, 1937, at the age of 55.
His life as a diocesan priest, continued in Naples, in the church of San Giuseppe dei Nudi, of which his brother Elio was parish priest. Here Father Dolindo was the founder of the Work of God and the Opera Apostolato Stampa.
Ruotolo left a Commentary on Sacred Scripture in 33 volumes, many theological, ascetical and mystical works, whole volumes of epistolary, autobiographical writings and Christian doctrine.
The Commentary on Scripture adopted the traditional exegetical method in an attempt to reconstruct the rupture between science and faith in exegesis, a method that was subsequently fought by the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Biblical Commission headed by Augustin Bea and Eugene Tisserant, respectively.
His work was condemned by the Holy Office.In
Among the works written by Father Dolindo Ruotolo there is also the Act of Abandonment: a short writing that, like the mystical line proposed by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, concerns the certain and total surrender of the faithful into the hands of Christ.
As the text mentions: "To abandon oneself means to quietly close the eyes of the soul, to turn one's thoughts away from affliction, and to give oneself back to Me, so that I Myself may work, saying: "You think about it". (...). (...) Close your eyes and let yourself be carried away by the current of My grace, close your eyes and do not think of the present, turn your thoughts away from the future as if they were a temptation, rest in Me believing in My goodness, and I swear to you by My love that by saying to Me with these dispositions: "You think about it," I think about it fully, I comfort you, I free you, I guide you."
On the same level is another important work of Father Dolindo: the Novena of Abandonment: a prayer tool simple and powerful at the same time: "...Close your eyes and let yourself be carried away by the current of My grace, close your eyes and do not think of the present, turning your thoughts away from the future as from temptation, rest in Me believing in My goodness..."
In 1960, a stroke disabled the left side of his body. He died on November 19, 1970.
His body is buried in the church of San Giuseppe dei Vecchi and Our Lady of Lourdes in Naples.
It is customary among Neapolitans to knock three times in the name of the Holy Trinity on the marble of his tomb, praying so faithfully to receive spiritual and material graces through his intercession, as the said: "come and knock on my grave... I will answer you".
The cult of Father Dolindo
Saint Pio of Pietrelcina said of him, to the Neapolitan faithful who made pilgrimages to him: "Why come here when you have Don Dolindo in Naples? Go to him, he is a saint".
Dolindo Ruotolo's name is also associated with a message considered prophetic by devotees on July 2, 1965, depicted on the back of Our Lady's image and addressed to the Pole Vytautas Laskowski. This document, authenticated by Bishop Pavel Hnilica, concerns the end of communism: "Mary for the soul. The world is heading for ruin, but Poland, as in the days of Sobieski, because of the devotion she has in my heart, will be today like the 20,000 who saved Europe and the world from Turkish tyranny. Now Poland will free the world from the most terrible communist tyranny. A new John is rising who will break the chains with a heroic march, beyond the limits imposed by communist tyranny. Remember this. I bless Poland. I bless you. Bless me. Poor Don Dolindo Ruotolo - Via Salvator Rosa, 58, Naples"
Considered by many to be a champion of Neapolitan spirituality and the Catholic Church, he rests in the church of San Giuseppe dei Vecchi, while the church of San Giuseppe dei Nudi contains the tomb of his brother Elio.
The process of canonization is currently underway.