Saint Joseph Allamano

Saint Joseph Allamano (Giuseppe Allamano) was a priest of the Archdiocese of Turin, for forty-six years rector of the shrine of Our Lady of Consolation, known as the Consolata, and a formator of young priests. Poor health kept him from going to the missions himself, yet he founded two missionary congregations. The Church commemorates him on February 16, the day of his death.

He was born on January 21, 1851, at Castelnuovo d’Asti in Piedmont, which was also the hometown of Saint John Bosco and Saint Joseph Cafasso. His mother, Maria Anna, was the younger sister of Father Cafasso. He met his uncle only once, at the age of six, yet he always held him up as a model for young priests. He completed his secondary studies at the Oratory at Valdocco in Turin, where for four years Don Bosco was his spiritual director.

He was ordained a priest on September 20, 1873. Soon he was assigned to the diocesan seminary, first as an assistant and then as spiritual director of the seminarians. In 1880 the archbishop entrusted to him the shrine of the Consolata. No one wanted the post: the old building was falling into ruin, and the residential college for young priests had been closed because of disputes over the teaching of moral theology. Allamano accepted it out of obedience and remained there until his death.

Together with Father Giacomo Camisassa, his lifelong collaborator, he restored the church and made it once again the spiritual center of the city. He had the college reopened and directed it as his uncle once had. He took an interest in the lot of workers, supported the Catholic press, and developed retreats for priests and lay people. He also worked for the beatification of Father Cafasso, which he attended in Rome in 1925.

From his youth he thought about the missions, and he was convinced that every priest is by nature a missionary. At the beginning of 1900 he fell gravely ill. His recovery, attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Consolation, he took as a sign that the work was to come into being. With the consent of the archbishop of Turin, on January 29, 1901, he founded the Institute of the Consolata Missionaries. A year later the first group set out for Kenya. Encouraged by Pope Pius X, on January 29, 1910, he began the congregation of the missionary sisters.

He received the candidates himself, met with them every week, and corresponded with the missionaries in Africa. He used to tell them: “First saints, then missionaries.” He wanted the institute to be not a college or a seminary but a family. He died beside the shrine of the Consolata on February 16, 1926. He rests in the church of the motherhouse of his missionaries in Turin.

John Paul II beatified him on October 7, 1990. The canonization followed the healing of a man of the Yanomami people in the Brazilian Amazon, who in 1996 was gravely wounded by a jaguar and at whose side the missionary sisters prayed through the intercession of their founder. Pope Francis proclaimed Joseph Allamano a saint on October 20, 2024, on World Mission Day.