St. Giuseppe Allamano, Founder of the Consolata Missionaries

Who was Blessed Giuseppe Allamano?

St. Giuseppe Allamano, for many years honored as Blessed Giuseppe Allamano, was a priest of Turin who never set foot in Africa or South America, yet sent missionaries there. He spent almost his whole priesthood as rector of the Consolata, Turin's best-loved shrine of Our Lady, and from that sanctuary he founded two missionary institutes. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1990, and Pope Francis canonized him on October 20, 2024. We keep his feast on February 16.

In the canonization homily, Pope Francis named him among priests "fervent with missionary zeal, like Father Joseph Allamano."

The life of St. Giuseppe Allamano

Nephew of a saint, pupil of a saint

Giuseppe was born on January 21, 1851, at Castelnuovo d'Asti, the same village as St. John Bosco. He was the fourth of five children. His mother, Marianna Cafasso, was the younger sister of St. Joseph Cafasso, the famous Turin priest who ministered to condemned prisoners. His father died before Giuseppe was three.

At eleven he went to Don Bosco's oratory at Valdocco in Turin, with Don Bosco himself as his confessor. After four years he slipped away to the diocesan seminary without saying goodbye. His brothers wanted him to finish public high school first, but he answered, "The Lord calls me today... I don't know if He will call me again in two or three years." The official Consolata biography records Don Bosco's gentle reproach: "You've played me a big trick. You left without saying goodbye."

Formator of priests

He was ordained on September 20, 1873. He hoped to be a country curate, but Archbishop Lorenzo Gastaldi assigned him to form seminarians, telling him, "You wanted to be a parish priest? Then I'll give you the finest parish in the diocese: the seminary!" He earned a doctorate in theology in 1876.

Rector of the Consolata

In October 1880, at only twenty-nine, he was made rector of the Sanctuary of the Consolata. When he objected that he was too young, the archbishop answered that it was better that way: if he made mistakes, he would have time to correct them. He held the post for 46 years, with his friend Fr. Giacomo Camisassa as his right hand. Like his uncle before him, he also guided the boarding house where young priests completed their training. John Paul II noted that he "succeeded his uncle, St. Joseph Cafasso" in this work.

Founder of the Consolata Missionaries

Allamano's health was always fragile, and he could not go to the missions himself. He sent others. On January 29, 1901, he founded the Institute of the Consolata Missionaries, priests and brothers for the missions ad gentes, and in 1902 the first group left for Kenya. On January 29, 1910, at the request of Pope St. Pius X, he founded the Consolata Missionary Sisters.

He insisted that his institute was "not a college... but a family," and he formed his missionaries with a simple rule that his followers still repeat: first saints, then missionaries. "Every priest," he said, "is a missionary by nature." Another of his sayings is loved by his spiritual children today: the good must be done well, and without noise.

In 1925 he was in Rome for the beatification of his uncle Joseph Cafasso. He died peacefully at the Consolata on February 16, 1926.

The miracles of St. Giuseppe Allamano

• Approved (for beatification): the healing in Kenya of a lay missionary, Serafina Nyambura, from acute, fulminant viral hepatitis. The case was investigated at Nyeri in 1975, and the decree was promulgated on July 10, 1990.
• Approved (for canonization): Sorino Yanomami, an indigenous man of the Brazilian Amazon, was attacked by a jaguar on February 7, 1996, and left with a fractured skull. Consolata sisters prayed a novena to Blessed Allamano. After surgery in Boa Vista he recovered without neurological damage and returned to his village on May 8. The Dicastery's medical board judged the healing scientifically inexplicable, and Pope Francis approved it on May 23, 2024.

Symbols of St. Giuseppe Allamano in art

Because he lived in the age of photography, he is pictured as he really looked: a slight, smiling priest in a black cassock, often with a black skullcap or biretta. The best symbol of his life is the icon of Our Lady Consolata, the image venerated in his sanctuary, which gives its name to his missionaries. A missionary crucifix points to the sons and daughters he sent to Africa and the Americas.

Feast day, tomb and prayer

We keep his feast on February 16, the day he died. See the feast day calendar. His remains rest in the mother house of the Consolata Missionaries in Turin.

The Consolata Missionaries publish novenas and litanies in his honor. Their invocations end with the simple words, "St. Joseph Allamano, pray for us." Let us ask him to pray for missionaries, for priests and seminarians, and for all who serve quietly and well without seeking notice. St. Giuseppe Allamano, pray for us.