Profile
Luigi Maria was the youngest of eight boys, born to Octavius and Theresa Antoine Palazzolo; his father died when he was about 10 years old. He was ordained a priest in the diocese of Bergamo, Italy on 23 June 1850. As a parish priest, he would occasionally encounter children who were abandoned or orphaned and living on their own; he would take them in and care for them until he could get them placed somewhere caring and safe. He founded the Little House of Divine Providence to care for neglected children, and the Work of Saint Dorothy. home to care for abandoned girls. He founded the Brothers of the Sacred Family, a congregation that died out in 1928. With Venerable Maria Teresa Gabrieli, he founded the Sisters of the Poor (Poverelle Sisters; Palazzolo Institute) on 22 May 1869 to care for and educate neglected girls; the Sisters received papal approval from Pope Pius X on 25 May 1912, and continue their good work today in Brazil, Burkina Faso, Congo, Italy, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Peru and Switzerland. He founded an orphanage in Traona, Italy on 4 October 1872. Due to respiratory problems, Father Luigi had to sleep sitting up during the last year or so of his life.
Born
- 10 December 1827 in Bergamo, Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia (in modern Italy)
Died
- in the early hours of 15 June 1886 in Bergamo, Italy of natural causes
- he died murmuring the name “Jesus Christ” over and over
- buried in the cemetery of San Giorgio in Bergamo
- re-interred at the mother-house of the Poverelle Sisters, Via San Bernardino 56, Bergamo, on 4 January 1904
Venerated
- 7 July 1962 by Pope John XXIII (decree of heroic virtues)
Beatified
- 19 March 1963 by Pope John XXIII
- beatification recognition celebrated in the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, Italy
- one of the beatification miracles involved the healing of a young Sardinian woman with peritonitis and tuberculosis on the afternoon of 21 July 1956 when she had a vision of Father Luigi asking her to get out of bed and go to church to thank God for her cure
- another beatification miracle involved the 1959 healing of a 65 year old woman from a severe head injury that left her comatose; the cure followed the family praying for the intercession of Father Luigi
Canonized
- 15 May 2022 by Pope Francis
- the canonization miracle involved the healing of Sister Gianmarisa Perani, who had joined the Poverelle Sisters in 1950; in November 2015 was rushed into emergency surgery, experienced complications, lapsed into a coma, and two months later was declared to be terminal; the Sisters prayed for her, she soon after recovered, and is alive and well today
- Decree on a Miracle by Blessed Aloysius Maria Palazzolo, Priest Founder of the Institute of Sisters of the Poor v.d. “Suore delle Poverelle – Istituto Palazzolo” (1827-1866)
Patronage
- Sisters of the Poor
Source: https://catholicsaints.info/saint-luigi-maria-palazzolo/
