Feast Day: February 16th
(We finally get to the saint behind the miraculous healing of Sorino Yanomami.) Giuseppe Ottavio Allamano was born in Asti, Italy, in 1851. His uncle was actually the wonderful “saint of the gallows”, Fr. Joseph Cafasso, and in his youth Giuseppe attended the oratory under St. John Bosco in Valdocco. These were influences towards his own entry into seminary in 1866, though at that time he was not at all certain that the Lord was calling him to be a priest, “The Lord is calling me today … I don’t know if he will call me again in two or three years.” So began his lifelong growth in learning to discern God’s will, happily including his ordination as a priest in 1873 for the Diocese of Turin. His first years of priesthood were as a spiritual director in the seminary, and completing his doctorate in theology. In 1876, he was made the rector of the seminary and a few years later (at the age of 29!) the rector of the Sanctuary della Maria della Consolazione (commonly simply called “La Consolata”). It was an ancient site of worship, and the spiritual heart of Turin, and Fr. Allamano was determined to be part of its renewal. He constructed additional chapels, restored the ceiling, and also worked on spiritual initiatives to build up the faith of the city including starting a monthly Catholic newspaper, La Consolata in 1899.
But it was his own brush with death in 1891 that brought him to discern that God was asking him even further off the standard path of a diocesan priest: to found a religious order dedicated to the missions. He had never been on mission, and would never even travel outside of Italy because of his poor health, but he found it “unnatural that in his Church, fertile with so many charity institutions, one solely dedicated to the missions was lacking”. And so, on January 29th, 1901, the Istituto Missioni Consolata was established. “Not having been able to be a missionary myself, I want those souls who wish to follow that path not to be hindered”. Yet, thinking again it seems, he also said ”the vocation to the missions is essentially the vocation of every holy Priest. All it takes is a greater love for our Lord Jesus Christ, which urges one to make him known and loved by those who do not yet know him and love him.”
It had taken 10 years to get the order off the ground – as he would also say, dioceses were willing to give money, but not men, for the missions. It was another decade later, with his brothers and fathers on mission all over the world, that he realized something deeply lacking in their efforts without women also carrying the Gospel to all those places. He needed not just spiritual fathers, but also mothers, to care for the poor and unevangelized around the world. He met, and received the approval of Pope Pius X to found a female branch of the Institute of the Consolata Missionaries in 1910 … and was not done yet. In 1912 he met the pope again, this time begging him to establish an annual day to proclaim the importance of mission to the whole church. Yes, to encourage those called to be missionaries, but also anticipating by decades the Second Vatican Council’s proclamation of the universal missionary vocation of the whole church.
Then war broke out in the Balkans, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, and World War I engulfed Europe. Pope Pius X was consumed by the horrors of war, and Fr. Allamano spent his time caring for his order abroad, and the many refugees and draftees from the war in the area around Turin. He died in February 1926. BUT, the great missionary zeal which had marked his life was not to be snuffed out! In 1927, Pope Pius XI instituted World Mission Sunday, which continues to our day to be celebrated every year in October. We happily already have Pope Francis’ words for this upcoming one of October 19, 2025 where he speaks to missionaries, like the Consolata fathers and sisters, and then to all of us:
I thank you most heartily! Your lives are a clear response to the command of the risen Christ, who sent his disciples to evangelize all peoples (cf. Mt 28:18-20). In this way, you are signs of the universal vocation of the baptized to become, by the power of the Spirit and daily effort, missionaries among all peoples and witnesses to the great hope given us by the Lord Jesus.
– Fr. Dominic is amazed at how impactful one diocesan priest can be all over the world a century after his death. Not only the many conversions, but now also the miraculous cure of Sorino Yanomami and the radical openness in the local tribes that was only possible after such a divine intervention.
