Blessed James Alberione

Blessed James Alberione was an Italian priest and the founder of the Pauline Family. He devoted his whole life to proclaiming the Gospel through the press, books, and the other means of social communication. The Church commemorates him on November 26, the day of his death.

He was born on April 4, 1884, in San Lorenzo di Fossano in Piedmont, into a hardworking and deeply believing family of farmers. Already in first grade, when his teacher asked what he would be, he answered that he would become a priest. At the age of sixteen he entered the seminary in Alba, where he met Canon Francesco Chiesa, his spiritual guide for the next forty-six years.

The turning point for him was the night between December 31, 1900, and January 1, 1901. The seminarian prayed for four hours before the Blessed Sacrament and felt obliged to do something for God and for the people of the new century: to serve the Church with the new means that human ingenuity provides. He was ordained a priest on June 29, 1907. For a short time he was assistant pastor in Narzole, where he met the young Giuseppe Giaccardo, the future Blessed Timothy, and he then became spiritual director and teacher at the seminary in Alba.

On August 20, 1914, he founded in Alba the Society of Saint Paul, the first congregation of the Pauline Family. A year later, with the help of Teresa Merlo, later Sister Thecla, he started the Daughters of Saint Paul. In 1924 the Sister Disciples of the Divine Master came into being, in 1938 the Sisters of Jesus the Good Shepherd, and between 1957 and 1960 the Queen of Apostles Institute for Vocations and four secular institutes.

Father Alberione published popular editions of Sacred Scripture and founded periodicals: in 1912 “Vita Pastorale,” a magazine for parish priests, in 1931 “Famiglia Cristiana,” a weekly for families, and for children “Il Giornalino.” He used to repeat that Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, must be made known to the people of our time with the means of our time. He also taught that the first concern of his communities must be holiness of life.

From 1962 to 1965 he attended the sessions of the Second Vatican Council every day. Suffering did not pass him by: he lived through the premature deaths of his first collaborators, Timothy Giaccardo and Thecla Merlo, and he himself struggled with a painful scoliosis. On June 28, 1969, at an audience, Pope Paul VI called him humble, silent, and tireless, and said that he had given the Church new means for her apostolate. Father Alberione died in Rome on November 26, 1971, at the age of 87. In the last hours of his life Paul VI visited and blessed him.

On June 25, 1996, Pope John Paul II signed the decree recognizing his heroic virtues, and on April 27, 2003, Divine Mercy Sunday, he proclaimed him blessed in Rome. In his homily he called him an apostle of the new times.