Saint Gaspare Bertoni

Life story

Gaspare Bertoni was born on 9 October 1777 in Verona, into a fairly well-off family of notaries. He was educated at St Sebastian's school. During the French invasion of 1796 he joined a Gospel fraternity that served the sick and wounded in the hospitals. He was ordained a priest on 20 September 1800.

He founded a youth oratory organized as a Marian cohort for Christian and social formation, but Napoleon suppressed it by decree in 1807. He also acted as spiritual director to two women who later founded religious communities, Leopoldina Naudet and Teodora Campostrini. In 1817 Pope Pius VII gave him the title of apostolic missionary. The Austrian authorities forbade mission preaching, so he turned to other kinds of preaching and catechesis.

In 1816 he founded, with two companions, the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata of Our Lord Jesus Christ, known as the Stigmatines, on 4 November. In the last twenty years of his life he suffered recurring fevers and a persistent infection in his right leg; the sources speak of nearly three hundred operations on the leg. He kept working as counsellor and spiritual director from his sickbed.

He died on 12 June 1853 in Verona; one source records his last words as “I need to suffer.” His congregation later spread to Italy, the United States, Brazil, Chile, the Philippines and mission areas in Africa and Thailand. Pope Paul VI beatified him on 1 November 1975, and Pope John Paul II canonized him on 1 November 1989.

Works and witness

• Served the sick and wounded in Verona's hospitals during the French invasion of 1796
• Ordained in 1800; his youth oratory was suppressed by Napoleon in 1807
• Founded the Stigmatines in 1816
• Gave spiritual direction and counsel to many people despite years of illness
• Canonized on 1 November 1989

Saints from the same country

Saint Agnes, Saint Lawrence, Saint Cecilia, Saint Sebastian

References

• Vatican, biography of Gaspare Bertoni for his canonization of 1 November 1989 (vatican.va, liturgy/saints)

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.