GIOVENALE DOTTA

THE CHARACTER AND WORKS

OF SAINT LEONARD MURIALDO

Translation of Bruno Guzzonato

Roma 2023
 ABBREVIATIONS

CASTELLANI, I = Armando CASTELLANI, Leonardo Murialdo, I, Tappe della formazione.

Prime attività apostoliche (1828-1866), Tipografia S. Pio X, Roma
1966.
cf. = see.
col. = column / columns.
DOTTA, = Giovenale DOTTA, Leonardo Murialdo. Infanzia, giovinezza e primi
Murialdo, I ministeri sacerdotali (1828-1866), Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del
Vaticano 2011.
DOTTA, = Giovenale DOTTA, Leonardo Murialdo. L’apostolato educativo e
Murialdo, II sociale (1866-1900), Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano
2015.
DOTTA, = Giovenale DOTTA, Leonardo Murialdo. Fondazione e sviluppo della
Murialdo, III congregazione (1866-1900), Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del
Vaticano 2018.
ed. = edition.
Ep. = S. Leonardo MURIALDO, Epistolario, a cura di Aldo M ARENGO, 5 vol.,
Libreria Editrice Murialdina, Roma 1970-1973. A sixth volume edited
in 1998, again by Aldo Marengo, contains the letters discovered after
1973. The number of the letter follows the one of the volume.
ib. = ibidem.
MARENGO, = Aldo MARENGO, Contributi per uno studio su Leonardo Murialdo
Murialdo educatore educatore, Tipografia S. Pio X, Roma 1964.
MARENGO, = Aldo MARENGO, Contributi per uno studio su Leonardo Murialdo
Murialdo fondatore fondatore e superiore generale, Tipografia S. Pio X, Roma 1969.
n. = footnote or number, dependig on the case.
p. / pp. = page / pages.
REFFO, Vita 1920 = Eugenio REFFO, Vita del T[eologo] Leonardo Murialdo Rettore degli
Artigianelli di Torino e Fondatore della Pia Società di S. Giuseppe,
Tipografia S. Giuseppe degli Artigianelli, Torino ²1920.
Scritti = S. Leonardo MURIALDO, Scritti, 15 vol., (Centro Storico Giuseppini del
Murialdo, Fonti e Studi, 5), Libreria Editrice Murialdo, Roma 1995-
2009.
Test. = San Leonardo MURIALDO, Testamento spirituale, introduzione,
traduzione e note a cura di Giuseppe FOSSATI, (Centro Storico
Giuseppini del Murialdo, Fonti e Studi, 12), Libreria Editrice Murialdo,
Roma ²2010 (the first edition dates back to 1983).
vol. = volume / volumes.

2
 THE CHARACTER AND WORKS
OF SAINT LEONARD MURIALDO

Studies on Saint Leonard Murialdo have undoubtedly made a lot of progress in

recent decades1. The critical edition of the Saint’s Writings has finally made many of his
pages accessible; they were previously difficult to find and unreliable in their textual
transmission. Some aspects of his biographical history were also outlined with greater
objectivity (especially those relating to the early years and the period of youth
formation), a deeper and clearer presentation of his spirituality was achieved and finally,
by removing previous emphasis, it was possible to better clarify its effective insertion
into the Piedmontese and Italian Catholic movements.
Recent historiographical discoveries have made possible a new biography of the
saint, published in three volumes between 2011 and 2018 2. They comprise more than
1,300 pages meant for scholars and for those readers who look for a well-researched and
scientifically sound knowledge of Saint Leonard Murialdo, while this pamphlet offers a
quite short presentation of the character and works of the piedmontese saint, but with
the incorporation of the historical results achieved up to date3.

1. From his birth to his priestly ordination

Leonardo Murialdo was born in Turin on October 26, 1828 to Leonardo Franchino
Murialdo and Teresa Rho. His parents were from Turin and lived at no. 10 of via
Stampatori, a flat that could also be accessed from no. 31 of via Dora Grossa (later via
Garibaldi). Leonard was the eighth child: six sisters had come into the world before
him, one of whom died at just three months of age, and a brother. A last sister was born
1
Cf. Bibliografia Murialdina (1982-2002), a cura di Sergio CERRACCHIO, Fabio COZZA e
Giovenale DOTTA, (Centro Storico Giuseppini del Murialdo, Sussidi, 8), Libreria Editrice Murialdo,
Roma 2004.
2
Giovenale DOTTA, Leonardo Murialdo, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano 2011-2018:
vol. I, Infanzia, giovinezza e primi ministeri sacerdotali (1828-1866); vol. II, L’apostolato educativo e
sociale (1866-1900); vol. III, Fondazione e sviluppo della congregazione (1866-1900).
3
This work retakes the one published in the magazine «Archivio Teologico Torinese» 6 (2000/2, at
page 173-203, under the title La figura e l’opera di San Leonardo Murialdo nel centenario della morte,
but with some modifications and bibliographic updating. The first biography of Murialdo, written by don
Reffo, dates back to 1903. It was reprinted in 1905 with several modifications. In 1920 a second edition
was published; I refer to this one since it is the last prepared by the very don Reffo, who is an eyewitness
and authoritative biographer of the life of Murialdo: Eugenio R EFFO, Vita del T[eologo] Leonardo
Murialdo Rettore degli Artigianelli di Torino e Fondatore della Pia Società di S. Giuseppe, Tip. S.
Giuseppe degli Artigianelli, Torino 1920. One could consider also the biography of Castellani, though
unfinished due to premature death of the author. The reader, though, should know that Castellani displays
a kind of liking for emphatic ways of writing and more frequently than not he does not seem to be
accurate in selecting and using his documents (sometimes not reliable or not authentic at all, or out of
context, if not invented): Armando C ASTELLANI, Leonardo Murialdo, I, Tappe della formazione. Prime
attività apostoliche (1828-1866); II, Il pioniere e l’apostolo dell’azione sociale cristiana e dell’azione
cattolica (1867-1900), Tipografia S. Pio X, Roma 1966-1968.

3
in 1830. His father was a stockbroker and trading broker. The Murialdo family belonged
to the well-to-do Turin bourgeoisie and boasted non-negligible real estate assets
(houses, farmhouses, landed properties, hill-side villas ...)4.
Murialdo wrote of his own family that «it was well-regarded and quite affluent;
my father was an honest stockbroker, practicing Catholic; my mother was pious,
exemplary, very fond of her children, especially me when I embraced the priestly life»5.
In 1833 Leonard lost his father, who died at the age of 56. His mother thought of
taking care of his education and of strengthening his somewhat frail constitution by
sending him to a boarding school in Savona, with the Piarists, together with his brother
Ernest. The Savona period (1836-43) profoundly marked Leonardo’s life, concerning
both, cultural sensitivity and spirituality. It is known that the school programs of the
Piarists differed from the Ratio studiorum of the Jesuits: sciences, history, Italian
literature, some modern languages (and not just the classical ones) were given greater
attention.
In Savona Leonard attended two years of elementary school, two of grammar, two
of humanity and one of rhetoric. The very brilliant results would probably have
guaranteed him, at the end of his curriculum, the coveted title of “Prince of the
Academy” [= Prince of Studies], together with a companion who, the only one among
all, surpassed him in academic performance. But Leonardo withdrew from Savona a
year earlier than expected, due to a painful psychological, religious and moral crisis
which affected him during the year 1842-43.The root causes of the crisis can be
identified in more than one factor: the difficulties of adolescence, the prolonged
distance from the family, the bad feelings concerning the boarding school environment,
in which “bad companions” “persecuted” him for his behaviour that, until then, had
always been exemplary and studded with academic successes and rewarded by the
esteem of the educators. Murialdo writes in his Spiritual Testament (begun in 1891):
«then I had the weakness and cowardice to completely abandon the good Lord. [...] For
fear of persecution I decided to behave like the others». The thought of eternal
damnation assailed him, had he died while in the boarding school, so far away from
God. Nonetheless he writes: «Well! - I had the diabolical courage to answer - well, if I
die while I’m still in the boarding school, never mind! If I will be able to leave the
boarding school, then I will convert»6.
It was not a case of loss of faith, but, as I have said, of a psychological, religious
and moral disorientation and of failure in his commitments in all areas, in an attempt to
escape the marginalization to which he was subjected by the more influential
companions, who in some respects were also the worst. The consequences were the
weakening of his usual religious fervour, less application in studying, multiplication of
faults and infidelities to God’s commandments, a life, as he himself says, marked «by
innumerable sins of every kind»7. It is again he who admits: «I had declared to the Lord

4
For information on the family of Leonard Murialdo cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, I, pp. 13-33.
5
Test., p. 125.
6
Test., p. 129-133. The Spiritual Testament «is a document of fundamental importance for
knowing the richness of Murialdo’s interior world. In fact, he describes his journey of conversion and
faith, and tells his “story of salvation” made up of sin and forgiveness, ingratitude and reparation,
repentance and desire for holiness: a story dominated by infinite mercy of God» (Giuseppe FOSSATI,
Storia di una conversione. Il «Testamento spirituale» di San Leonardo Murialdo, Libreria Editrice
Murialdo, Roma 1997, p. 17).
7
Test., p. 133.

4
that I would no longer be his own until after leaving the boarding school» 8. Leaving
aside the individual sins committed, he will later consider that phase of his life as a true
rejection of God, as a neglect that displeased him and made him suffer, but which he did
not then have the strength and courage to overturn.
The situation was overcome only with the early return to his own family and with
the general confession that he will later consider as the moment of his «conversion», as
I will say when speaking of his spirituality9.
Having found a way to avoid attending the second year of rhetoric, Leonardo
enrolled, together with his brother Ernesto, in the philosophy course (1843-45), a
prelude to the university studies that he completed between 1845 and 1850, after taking
the decision to become a priest10.
However, he did not reside in the seminary, but at home, as was the custom for a
good number of the Turin seminarians of that time who attended theology at the state
university while remaining in the family. In other words, Leonardo was, as it was said at
the time, an “external” cleric.
External clerics were obliged to follow a certain formative programme in groups
called “clergy”, attached to a church in Turin, and more precisely in San Filippo, Corpus
Domini and Santa Maria di Piazza. Murialdo was part of the latter “clergy”, very close
to his house. A priest, called “prefect of the clergy” was responsible for the students: he
would follow their liturgical and ascetic preparation, would supervise their behaviour
and report periodically to the curia.
Every Sunday and on all feasts of obligation Murialdo went to Santa Maria di
Piazza, together with his fellow external clerics, to participate in the solemn mass and,
in the afternoon, to attend vespers. Every Thursday, a day off from lessons, he would
return there to learn about ceremonies” (a theoretical-practical training on the spirit and
modalities of liturgical celebrations) and for a conference on vocation and on the life
and duties of the priest11.
Among his professors are to be remembered: Carlo Savio (Theological
Institutions), Casimiro Banaudi (Biblical Institutions); Felice Parato (Moral Theology);
Angelo Serafino (Speculative Theology); Giuseppe Ghiringhello (Holy Scripture).
These were the years in which an important cultural turning point had taken place at the
university of Turin, with the transition «from a sensitive and eclectic orientation to the
Rosminian one»12, with understandable influences also in the teaching of theology.
It was also the time of the first liberal reforms granted by Carlo Alberto in the
midst of «huge manifestations of jubilation», writes Chiuso, who then continues quoting
Pier Carlo Boggio: «they were immense waves of people all dressed up, flagged,

8
Test., p. 141.
9
On the Savona period and the crisis cf. DOTTA, Murialdo. I, pp. 35-58; on the crisis, read the
considerations of Fossati in Test., pp. 77-89; the same author returned to the subject in a clear and
effective summary that I have already mentioned (FOSSATI, Storia di una conversione), of which see
pp. 27-38.
10
About the two-year philosophical period cf. DOTTA, Murialdo. I, pp. 59-74; regarding the
theological course cf. ib., pp. 75-97.
11
Cf. Luigi NICOLIS DI ROBILANT, Un prete di ieri. Il canonico Stanislao Gazelli di Rossana e S.
Sebastiano con documenti inediti, Tipografia Salesiana, Torino 1901, pp. 44-45 and DOTTA,
Murialdo. I, pp. 83-87.
12
Giuseppe TUNINETTI, Facoltà teologiche a Torino. Dalla Facoltà universitaria alla Facoltà
dell’Italia Settentrionale, Piemme, Casale Monferrato 1999, p. 119. The same author traces short
profiles of the aforementioned professors on pp. 106-119; cf. also DOTTA, Murialdo. I, pp. 79-81.

5
garlanded, moving down streets and squares acclaiming the Prince, acclaiming Pius
IX»13. Despite the prohibition of archbishop Fransoni, numerous seminarians
participated in the pro-liberal and patriotic demonstrations of the end of 1847 and the
beginning of 1848. The repeated disobedience of the clerics, the foreseeing of new
demonstrations in support of the now imminent war against Austria and the interruption
of studies at the university convinced the archbishop to close the seminary in February
1848. «All the clerics who had taken part in those events, even those who had begged
for forgiveness, were excluded from sacred ordinations»14.
The young Murialdo had not joined the processions and the shouting in public
places. However, it is not possible for us to say how he lived those moments. The letters
in which he would speak of the events of 1846 (Pius IX, Neo-Guelphism ...) and of the
following years (Gioberti, the birth of newspapers of various tendencies, the Statute, the
expulsion of the Jesuits, the first war of independence, the beginnings of the
“subversive” legislation ...) are unreliable. They were used by Castellani and Marengo
and merged into the edition of Murialdo’s Epistolary, but at the current state of research
they can no longer serve as sources on the period of theological studies of the future
Rector of the Artigianelli Boarding School15.
Murialdo was able to complete his studies at the university and graduate in
Theology (May 8, 1850), while the number of degrees obtained by Turinese seminarians
at the subalpine university was now dwindling. Fransoni in fact had forbidden his
theology students to attend the university, following the Boncompagni law (1848) which
excluded the bishop from any intervention in the choice and approval of professors, in
the conferral of degrees and in the various decisions concerning the life of the Turin
university16.
On 20 September 1851 Leonardo Murialdo was ordained a priest by Monsignor
Ceretti, of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, former missionary bishop and then “retired”
bishop in Turin, where he was readily available for replacing the exiled Fransoni on the
occasion of sacred ordinations.
In the meantime, he had completed his training, even before ordination, by
participating in the meetings of the Solariana Academy, which dealt with themes of
dogmatic and moral theology, ecclesiastical history and Italian literature. He also joined
the Company of St. Thomas Aquinas which gathered many clerics and priests (about a
hundred or more), with educational and religious intentions. It was based at the Mission
House (church of the Visitation). Participants gathered every Sunday for prayer,
spiritual reading and one lecture given by the director. In the years following his

13
Tomaso CHIUSO, La Chiesa in Piemonte dal 1797 ai nostri giorni, III, Speirani, Torino 1888, p.
208.
14
Ib., p. 224.
15
I am referring especially to a group of letters that would have been written by Murialdo around
1848 or, subsequently, in the years in which the legislation was elaborated, first subalpine and then
Italian, tending to progressively secularize society. Of these letters we do not have the original text
and some of them have some inconsistencies that demonstrate their inauthenticity. I provide the list
(some are even much later than the events of 1848): Ep., I, 15; 16; 17; 18; 21; 23; 24; 25; 33; 34; 231;
274; 350; 362; Ep., II, 623; 790; 817; Ep., III, 1078; 1180; Ep., IV, 1445; Ep., V, 2114; 2243. For a
deepening of the question cf. Giovenale DOTTA, Problemi di critica testuale nell’epistolario del
Murialdo, (Centro Storico Giuseppini del Murialdo, Fonti e Studi, 9), Libreria Editrice Murialdo,
Roma 2003.
16
Cf. TUNINETTI, Facoltà teologiche, pp. 121-124.

6
ordination, he continued to attend the Society, albeit not assiduously, as an aggregate
priest17.

2. Priestly springtime in the Turin oratories

After ordination, Murialdo undertook his first apostolic activities without however
renouncing to cultivate an intense personal spiritual life and continuous cultural
formation in the fields of theology, morals and homiletics. He attended the Academy of
Sacred Eloquence, the lectures on Moral Theology held at the university by the
theologian Barbero (this is confirmed for the first years of his time as rector at the
Artigianelli) and, occasionally, the Biblical-Oratory Academy, directed by the well-
known Lazarist father Giuseppe Buroni, in which the Bible was studied and a preaching
nourished by Sacred Scripture and accessible to the people was practiced18.
For Leonardo, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (not to be confused with the
homonymous conferences) proved to be a precious intermediary for his first contacts in
the apostolic field. It was made up of a group of priests who set out, among other
objectives, to promote spiritual conferences for the clergy and the organization of
catechisms in poor neighbourhoods, in correctional prisons and in the “Generala”, the
juvenile prison in Turin. Among the participants were many protagonists of the ecclesial
life of those decades and the priests engaged in various “leading” sectors of pastoral
care at the time: Fr. Anglesio, canon Vogliotti, Don Bosco, Fr. Cocchi, Fr. Borel, Fr.
Cafasso, the Lazarist Durando, Galletti, who had renounced the title of canon to serve
the poor as a priest in the Little House of Divine Providence and who would later
become bishop of Alba, Fr. Roberto Murialdo and various others. It was Roberto
Murialdo, his cousin, who introduced Leonardo to this unique network of friendships
and commitment. Through him Leonardo became acquainted with the youth apostolate
among the boys of the oratories and began to go every Thursday to correctional prisons
and to the “Generala” to teach catechism together with other priests19.
Meanwhile, in October 1851 Roberto Murialdo had taken over the direction of the
Oratory of the Guardian Angel and was then officially confirmed in that office by
archbishop Fransoni with a letter dated 31 March 1852. The Guardian Angel was the
first of the Turin oratories and it had been founded in the Vanchiglia area by Fr.
Giovanni Cocchi in 1840.
For Leonard, thanks to his cousin, the field of work was opened in the Turin
oratories which at that time were three and depended on Don Bosco who personally
directed that of Valdocco and was in some way also responsible for the San Luigi at
Porta Nuova, entrusted to Paolo Rossi, and of the Guardian Angel, directed by Robert
Murialdo. A fourth oratory, female, was founded by Fr. Saccarelli in Borgo San Donato
in 1850. Various other oratories were opened the following years in different parts of the
city.
17
For the ordinations of Murialdo cf. DOTTA, Murialdo. I, pp. 120-126; for the Solariana
Academy, ib., pp. 92-94 and Giuseppe TUNINETTI, Lorenzo Gastaldi 1815-1883, I, Teologo,
pubblicista, rosminiano, vescovo di Saluzzo: 1815-1871, Piemme, Casale Monferrato 1983, pp. 19-
23; about the Company of St. Thomas Aquinas cf. DOTTA, Murialdo. I, pp. 95-97.
18
For the Academy of Sacred Eloquence cf. DOTTA, Murialdo. I, pp. 129-131; for moral
conferences cf. ib., pp. 131-133; for the Biblical-Oratory Academy cf. ib., pp. 133-135.
19
Cf. REFFO, Vita 1920, pp. 22-24 and DOTTA, Murialdo. I, pp. 161-165.

7
 They were Sunday oratories that opened their doors to boys and quite old young
people who thus participated in the Mass, prayers, catechism and various games that
were organized there. It was a way to meet many young people in the city, or recent
immigrants, who did not attend the parishes of Turin and their catechisms. It was the
attempt of a new youth ministry, attentive to the needs of street children, eager to
approach them with new methods, since the traditional ones were no longer conducive.
Leonard’s apostolate at the Guardian Angel, among hundreds of young people
(even 400 or 500), continued until 1857, when he was called to direct the Oratory of
San Luigi, at Porta Nuova20.
It was Don Bosco who entrusted him with that task. Murialdo made his solemn
entry into the oratory on July 26, 1857. In his first speech to those boys he expressed
one of the lines of his pedagogy, that of the loving and friendly presence among the
boys: «I will do what I can, he said, in the instructions, [making myself] available for
the Sacraments, and for lawful entertainment, music, gymnastics, games; not as a
superior, but [as] a friend»21.
The oratory was a Sunday oratory, but in Lent it opened its doors every day and
not just on Sundays. In addition, on some weekday evenings choir practice took place,
which Murialdo began with the help of a layman, the lawyer Gaetano Bellingeri; to
direct it was the teacher Elzeario Scala who would later teach at the Artigianelli
Boarding School.
But the real novelty introduced by Murialdo was the daytime elementary school,
open to many children «who attended the oratory on holidays and then had nothing to
do during the whole week»22. It began in 1858-59, gathering 70-90 boys, depending on
the time of the year. Murialdo and members of the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul
would cover the expenses for the remodelling of buildings, the running of the school,
the teachers’ salaries, and awards to be given to the children many of whom were helped
also financially through a subsidy given to the families, as the Saint Vincent Conference
used to do23.
The role of the laity in the oratory was quite relevant. The group of Murialdo
would include some important names among those of the Turin laity of that time, such
as those of Bellingeri, Viancino, Scarampi and Ferrante. Then, every Sunday, the
Salesian clerics would come from Valdocco, whom Murialdo entrusted with the
teaching of catechism and the organization of games: Fr. Michele Rua, Don Bosco’s
first successor, Fr. Celestino Durando, Fr. Giovanni Cagliero, future cardinal....24.

20
On the Oratory of the Guardian Angel cf. DOTTA, Murialdo. I, pp. 165-191; MARENGO,
Murialdo educatore, pp. 358-360; on the first Turin oratories see also Pietro STELLA, Don Bosco
nella storia della religiosità cattolica, I, Vita e opere, PAS-Verlag, Zürich 1968, pp. 106-119.
21
The speech is found in Scritti, XI, pp. 115-116. There are other important emphases concerning
the supernatural purpose of educational action, the enhancement of collaborators, ecclesiastics and
laity, and the typical means of the apostolate in oratories.
22
REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 29.
23
Cf. REFFO, Vita 1920, pp. 29-30; «Bullettino della Società di S. Vincenzo de’ Paoli», Genova, n.
134, February 1866, pp. 49-50; Maurizio CESTE, Testimoni della carità. Le conferenze di San
Vincenzo a Torino, 150 anni di storia, I, L’Ottocento, Effatà Editrice, Cantalupa (TO) 2003, pp. 305-
312; 356-359.
24
On San Luigi Oratory cf. REFFO, Vita 1920, pp. 24-36; MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp.
355-381; DOTTA, Murialdo, I, pp. 173-175; Alberto CAVIGLIA, L’Oratorio S. Luigi dal 1847 al 1922,
in L’Oratorio Salesiano «San Luigi Gonzaga» nel LXXV anniversario di sua fondazione, Torino 8
dicembre 1922, Tipografia S. Giuseppe degli Artigianelli, Torino 1922, pp. 7-21.

8
 For Murialdo, the beautiful and intense period of San Luigi ended in September
1865 when, anticipating his brother’s family who was preparing to spend the winter in
Paris, he decided to dedicate a year to study, reflection and prayer in the famous
Seminary of San Sulpizio.
That of Paris was a fundamental period in his theological and spiritual formation.
Murialdo reviewed and studied some subjects, especially moral theology and canon law,
at an historical time in which the well-known gallican tendencies of the Sulpicians
(Carrière, Galais, Icard...) had, by now, given way to ultramontanism influences25.
In Paris Leonardo came to know new methods and experiences in the field of
youth and workers’ apostolate and knew how to make the most out of the time available
to him for further advancement on the path of prayer and asceticism. He approached the
spirituality of Bérulle and Olier not only through classroom lessons, but also thanks to
all the moments of the seminarian life which he willingly accepted, even though he was
already 37 years of age. The textbooks and the prayer books used at San Sulpizio, notes
that he had jotted down during lessons, and those he had annotated from homilies or
meditations he had heard, were then used by him throughout his whole life, not only for
personal benefit, but also for talks addressed to confreres and youths.
In that year he chose Henri Icard (1805-1893) as his spiritual guide, who just then
(1865) had taken over the direction of the seminary and who would later become
Superior General of the Sulpician congregation. Murialdo will also consult him later,
before the foundation of the Congregation of Saint Joseph, and will keep in his personal
library several works, as well as those of other Sulpicians26.

3. Rector of the Artigianelli Boarding School

1866, year in which he returned to Turin and accepted the direction of the
Artigianelli Boarding School, marked a fundamental and definitive turning point in
Murialdo’s life.
At the end of 1849, the founder of the centre, Fr. Giovanni Cocchi (1813-1895),
had begun to gather around himself some poor and abandoned boys. At first he hosted
them in a room of the parish house of the Santissima Annunziata Church, where he was
assistant pastor, then he transferred them to the Oratory of the Guardian Angel, but
soon, at the beginning of 1850, he rented three rooms in Borgo Vanchiglia and started a
school for his first boys. The school was relocated several times, and was finally settled
in a building at 14-Corso Palestro, in March 1863.
Around Fr. Cocchi, and on his initiative, was born in 1850 the “Charity
Association for the benefit of poor and abandoned young people” of which, in addition

25
The encyclical Inter multiplices of 21 March 1853 had in fact marked the victory of
ultramontanism over gallicanism. San Sulpizio adopted the Roman liturgy and oversaw the revision
of many of his theological treatises. Icard had to correct several times his Praelectiones juris
canonici to eliminate the references to the freedoms of the national churches and to better emphasize
the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff (cf. Austin GOUGH, Paris et Rome. Les catholiques français et le
pape au XIXe siècle, Les Éditions de l’Atelier, Paris 1996, pp. 228-274). The second (“amended”)
edition of the Praelectiones (1862) is the one still found today in the Murialdo Library.
26
On the Parisian period of Murialdo cf. REFFO, Vita 1920, pp. 36-42; DOTTA, Murialdo, I, pp.
219-278; Test., pp. 154-156 and related notes. The notes of the Parisian lessons are found in Scritti,
XII; in Scritti, I, pp. 92-102 you can instead read the notes made by Murialdo during the spiritual
exercises of the year of San Sulpizio.

9
to Fr. Cocchi, also the Fr.s Roberto Murialdo, Giacinto Tasca and Antonio Bosio were
members. In the following years, the Charity Association, among its presidents counted
the abbot Amedeo Peyron (1785-1870), professor of oriental languages at the university
of Turin, and Abbot Giovanni Antonio Rayneri (1810-1867), famous pedagogist, also
professor of the same university. The Association, through its organisms 27, was
ultimately responsible for the activity of the Artigianelli Boarding School and for the
houses that were later founded with the aim of «helping so many poor young people
who wander around the streets or lazily clutter the squares [.. .] orphans or neglected or
badly cared for by their relatives; and provide them both for the soul and for the
body»28.
Fr. Cocchi directed the School until 1852. Then he moved to Cavoretto, on the
Turin hills, to establish an agricultural colony there. In the position as Rector he was
replaced by Fr. Giacinto Tasca and Fr. Pier Giuseppe Berizzi, until 1863, when Berizzi
remained as the only Rector. The Artigianelli was meant to welcome, assist, educate in a
Christian manner and train orphaned, poor and neglected children in some trade. At the
beginning the boys went to learn their jobs in the artisan shops of the city (shoemakers,
blacksmiths, carpenters...), then, in 1856, the first internal workshops were set up that
could expand and improve when the Centre was established at Palestro Street. The name
“Artigianelli”, wanted by Fr. Cocchi, alluded to the professional training that the
institute provided to its young people.
It was Fr. Pier Giuseppe Berizzi (1824-1873) who strengthened the workshops,
founded the printing house and surrounded himself with a group of valid collaborators
among which two young clerics, Giulio Costantino (1842-1915) and Eugenio Reffo
(1843-1925) stood out29.
In 1866 Berizzi was recalled to Biella, his diocese of origin, having been
appointed archpriest of the cathedral. He begged Murialdo to take over the direction of
the school. Murialdo was surprised and even frightened. He knew the Artigianelli
because since 1855 he had been going there every Saturday to hear the confession of the

27
The Superior Management, the Council and the “Administration”, later merged into a single
body called “Management” and made up of 12 people.
28
Regolamento, art. 2, cited in MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, p. 10.
29
Cf. MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp. 3-48; DOTTA, Murialdo, II, pp. 13-60; Eugenio REFFO,
Don Cocchi e i suoi Artigianelli, Tipografia S. Giuseppe degli Artigianelli, Torino 1896, pp. 10-17.
Fr. Giulio Costantino was, together with Fr. Reffo, Murialdo’s collaborator in the Artigianelli
Boarding School, in the other works of the Charity Association and in the Congregation of Saint
Joseph, of which he became Superior General after Murialdo’s death (cf. Tullio LOCATELLI, Don
Giulio Costantino [1842-1915]. “Profondamente umile e mirabilmente buono”, Libreria Editrice
Murialdo, Roma 2016). Fr. Eugenio Reffo had entered the Collegio Artigianelli at the end of 1861 as
a teacher. From that moment on he dedicated his whole life to poor and abandoned children. He was
Murialdo’s main collaborator in the foundation and first structuring of the Congregation of Saint
Joseph. He remained for a long time in the group of writers of the «Unità Cattolica» and then was
part of the editorial board of the newspaper «L’Italia Reale» until at the beginning of 1895 he began
to write regularly in the weekly «La Voce dell’Operaio», of which he assumed effective direction in
1901, holding it until his death. He was the author of plays and numerous writings of a devotional
and ascetic nature. In 1912 he succeeded Fr. Costantino as Superior General of the congregation. A
detailed “biographical chronology” of Fr. Reffo can be found in Eugenio REFFO, Lettere circolari ai
confratelli giuseppini (1900-1924), a cura di Giovanni MILONE, (Centro Storico Giuseppini del
Murialdo, Fonti e Studi, 3), Libreria Editrice Murialdo, Roma 1988, pp. XXIII-XXXII. See also the
Lettere scelte, a cura di Giuseppe BELLOTTO, Libreria Editrice Murialdo, Roma 1996 (the letters
published are 223) and Tullio LOCATELLI, Don Eugenio Reffo (1843-1925), Libreria Editrice
Murialdo, Roma 2014.

10
boys30. But now this was implying for him a radical change in way of life and
occupations. It would also mean the acceptance of a very heavy responsibility: that of
an institution burdened with large debts and without solid income, since almost all the
children were hosted there for free. One could count almost only on donations from
benefactors.
On 6 November 1866 the Superior Direction of the College sent Murialdo the
letter of appointment as Rector. He replied, accepting, on November 13 31. On 9
December 1866, the second Sunday of Advent and external feast of the Immaculate
Conception, he made his first appearance in the institute as Rector. In the following
months, Berizzi stayed by his side to help him get acquainted with the duties of a rector.
On May 12, 1867, feast of the Patronage of St. Joseph, Murialdo made his official entry
into the Institute. Berizzi had left for Biella five days earlier. From that 12 May until his
death Fr. Murialdo will live in the School, spending most of his energy on the orphaned,
poor and abandoned children who were welcomed in that institution and in others also
connected to it.32.
At the time when Murialdo accepted the office of Rector, there were about 150
young guests in the school. Their number increased in the following years, reaching the
figure of 180-200, according to each time. They attended four elementary classes
(which became five in 1890) and a complementary course. At the age of 12 they could
then access the workshops, for a period of preparation to the actual internship that
would begin at 14 and end at 19. Along with religious education, Murialdo managed to
perfect also the intellectual and technical preparation imparted in schools and
laboratories. The latter were five in 1867 and rose to a dozen (with some specializations
within them) during the long leadership of Murialdo: typographers, composers, printers,
designers, lithographers, carpenters, wood or iron lathe-machine operators, sculptors,
tailors, shoemakers, book binders, type makers, blacksmiths33.
The drafting of new regulations (1867) for all the people assigned to the
institution, for the boys (disciplinary regulations), for the laboratories, for the prefects,
the team leaders and the laboratory heads saw Fr. Eugenio Reffo, Murialdo’s main
collaborator, at work. He will also be the main protagonist in the drafting of the various
rules of the future Congregation of St. Joseph.
The superintendence of the laboratories was instead entrusted to Fr. Giulio
Costantino, vice-rector of the school and teacher of mathematics, physics and drawing
as well as choir director.
All this took place not without keeping a scrutinizing eye into other educational
realities, including European ones. This seems to be a relevant feature in the educational
attention of the leaders of the Charity Association. One can refer to Fr. Cocchi’s trip to
Switzerland, France, Belgium and England in 1852 to visit renowned educational

30
Cf. REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 46. It is Fr. Reffo himself who speaks of Berizzi’s plea and of terror in
Murialdo.
31
Cf. Ep., I, 67.
32
Cf. MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp. 50-54; DOTTA, Murialdo, II, pp. 93-105.
33
On the number of students of the Artigianelli Boarding School and on the laboratories cf.
Giovenale DOTTA, La formazione al lavoro nel Collegio Artigianelli al tempo del Murialdo, in
Formazione del giovane e preparazione al lavoro, Atti del seminario di studio, Collegio Artigianelli,
Torino, 30 marzo 2001, (Collana For-Per, Nuova serie, 9), Libreria Editrice Murialdo, Roma 2001,
pp. 31-80, then re-edited with a few variations in «Annali di storia dell’educazione e delle istituzioni
scolastiche» 9 (2002) pp. 227-256.

11
institutes, agricultural institutions and boarding schools34, to Fr. Cocchi’s, now together
with Murialdo, going through Italy in 1872 35, to Murialdo’s various trips to France, but
also to Belgium and England, between 1872 and 1881, sometimes accompanied by Fr.
Costantino, his nephew Carlo Peretti or the publisher Pietro Marietti 36. Well-known are
also Fr. Reffo’s trips to France, relevant for the information and updated aspects gained
(1872, 1880)37.

4. A vast network of initiatives

His trip to Switzerland, France, Belgium and England in 1852 had allowed Fr.
Cocchi to come to know directly the Fellenberg institutes in Hofwyl, near Bern, the
agricultural colony of Demetz and de Courteilles in Mettray, the reformatory which was
based in Ruiselede, in Belgium and probably the agricultural School of Redhill,
England, managed by Anglicans. It comes spontaneous to think that, through these
contacts, some intuitions dating back to Pestalozzi (through Fellenberg) and other
educators from across the Alps, entered the pedagogical planning and educational
practice of the Charity Association (and therefore also of Murialdo).
The immediate result, however, was the foundation, by Fr. Cocchi, of an
agricultural school, built in Cavoretto, on the hills of Turin, in 1852, and moved to
Moncucco, today in the province of Asti, the following year. The declared objective was
to “re-educate”, through agricultural work, some of the younger and even “naughtier”
children previously hosted at the Artigianelli Boarding School38.
The results remained below expectations, also due to the fact that Fr. Cocchi, a
courageous founder, did not prove to be equally skilled in organizing and giving
effective stability to the initiatives he had given life to. The concern for establishing the
agricultural school of Moncucco on more solid foundation inspired Murialdo’s trip to

34
Cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, II, pp. 61-64.
35
On the journey through Italy in 1872, read the notes drawn up by Murialdo (Scritti, XI, pp. 172-
180) and the letters of Ep., I, 348-361 (letters 350 and 362 are not authentic); cf. also DOTTA,
Murialdo, II, pp. 151-168.
36
I provide below the list of Murialdo’s trips abroad to visit educational works and participate in
the French congresses of the Union des Oeuvres Ouvrières Catholiques: 1872 (Lyon, sanctuary of
Issoudun, congress of Poitiers, Paris, Cîteaux); 1874 (sanctuary of La Salette, Marseille, Cîteaux,
Lyon congress); 1875 (congress of Reims, Paris, Mesnières-en-Bray, Paris, Chambéry); 1876
(sanctuary of Notre Dame de Fourvières near Lyon, congress of Bordeaux, Lourdes, Mettray, Tours,
Bourges, sanctuary of Issoudun, Cîteaux, Lyon); 1878 (Cîteaux, Paris, Brussels, Namur, Antwerp and
other places in Belgium, London, Chartres [participation in the congress uncertain], Paris, Toulouse,
Marseille); 1879 (Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, congress of Angers, Clermont-Ferrand, Le Puy, Lyon,
sanctuary of La Salette, Gap, Chambéry, Annecy); 1881 (sanctuary of Paray-le-Monial, congress of
Le Mans, Angers, Tours, Bordeaux, Lourdes, Toulouse, Marseille); the last trips abroad were those of
1885, 1886 and 1887, for thermal treatments in Allevard-les-Bains (Isère), with some visits to the
surroundings (in 1887 he went as far as Cîteaux and Paray-le-Monial). Various notes on these
journeys can be found in Scritti, XI, pp. 181-216. For further information, it is necessary to refer
above all to the letters of the various volumes of the Epistolario (Ep.), on the corresponding dates. Cf.
also DOTTA, Murialdo, II, pp. 168-220; 273-318.
37
Cf. REFFO, Lettere circolari ai confratelli giuseppini, pp. XXV-XXVI. On the consolidation and
development of educational and job training activities in the Artigianelli boarding school at the time
of Murialdo, see MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp. 60-96; DOTTA, Murialdo, II, pp. 93-122; 353-
398.
38
Cf. MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp. 7-10; DOTTA, Murialdo, II, pp. 61-71.

12
France in 1875 and also that of 1876. He wished to perfect not only the technical
organization, but also its moral and religious education in the Moncucco institution. It
was about «christianizing the school», as Murialdo himself affirms, perhaps suggesting
that Fr. Cocchi in Moncucco did not sufficiently care for the educational aspects and the
christian growth of the boys39. Ultimately the Charity Association and Murialdo gave up
«reforming» Moncucco and opted for the opening of a new agricultural school, in
Bruere, near Rivoli, a few kilometres from Turin.
The foundation brought about by Murialdo, is dated May 16, 1878. The building
and the land, of 40 hectares, had been purchased by the engineer Carlo Peretti,
Murialdo’s nephew, financier and managerial mind of the technical organization of the
new institution, which soon achieved excellent results. The educational goal was to
make the children «hardworking and intelligent farmers, honest and faithful citizens,
educated and courageous Christians»40. The boys were engaged in agricultural work,
horticulture, gardening, breeding and workshops for internal use: tailoring, shoemaking,
carpentry, blacksmiths’ workshop. From 1881 the theoretical part was improved, giving
rise to a real theoretical-practical school of agriculture with courses in botany, physics,
drawing, horticulture, chemistry, agronomy...
The number of boys, only 10 at the beginning, rose to 60 in the school year 1878-
79 and to 80 in the following year. The quality of the training they received is testified
by the many awards, diplomas, mentions, medals… that the school won in various
agricultural exhibitions and events41.
Among the works dependent on the Association of Charity there was also a
reformatory that welcomed children from the “Generala” of Turin and from other
correctional institutions scattered throughout Italy. Fr. Cocchi had opened it in Chieri in
1868 and had moved it in 1870 to a building made available by the government in
Bosco Marengo, in the province of Alessandria. Over time, the work came to welcome
about 400 young inmates, aged no more than fifteen. The younger ones would attend
elementary school, the older ones, in addition to school, were to learn a trade in the
internal laboratories.
In October 1872, Fr. Cocchi resigned from the direction of the reformatory and
was replaced by Fr. Giulio Costantino. The situation of the institute was always
burdened by heavy problems: first of all financial, but also pedagogical ones, deriving
from the difficulty of following and educating a large mass of young people without the
availability of a sufficient and well-trained staff of educators willing to live a very
demanding life.
The Management of the Charity Association would have liked to make of Bosco
Marengo not only a reformatory for the «care» of young people, but above all a house
for education and moral and professional improvement. The government authorities, on
the other hand, skimped on financial resources and proved deaf to the proposals for
even necessary structural improvements. In Turin, Murialdo and most of the members
of the Management were convinced of the inappropriateness of renewing the agreement
with the Ministry of the Interior for the conduct of the reformatory, which nevertheless
survived amidst many difficulties until 1883, when it was the government of its own
initiative, who closed it down. The boys were sent to the various correctional houses

39
Cf. Ep., II, 613-614 and also DOTTA, Murialdo, II, pp. 71-91.
40
Scritti, XI, p. 50.
41
On agriculture colony cf. MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp. 106-148; REFFO, Vita 1920, pp. 103-
110; DOTTA, Murialdo, II, pp. 221-247.

13
existing in Italy. Only 25 of them escaped dispersion and were welcomed in the
agricultural school of Rivoli42.
Fr. Giulio Costantino, now free from the leadership of the reformatory, returned to
Turin and resumed his position as head of the laboratories and vice-rector at the
Artigianelli Boarding School. He also took over the management of the family home, a
true hostel for young workers and students founded in 1878 by Murialdo, who had taken
inspiration from various similar initiatives seen in France. It was the first such
institution in Italy.
The family home (located next to the church of Santa Giulia, in the Vanchiglia
district) was designed primarily for young people who had finished their professional
training at the Artigianelli. That is, it hosted young workers who did not have a family
or other support point in Turin for food and accomodation. However, it was also open to
other young workers who came to Turin in search of employment. Away from home,
they were given a welcoming, financially convenient and morally sound hospitality.
Less than a year after the opening, the guests were already twenty and soon
increased to fifty. The family home offered the young workers boarding, lodging in
single rooms, spiritual formation and opportunities for recreation for their free time;
they were having their clothing washed, ironed and mended.
In 1881 the family home was started receiving also students. But on 23 December
1883, Carlo Peretti, who was the real financial support of that institution, died suddenly
at the age of 38. Murialdo found himself in a very serious financial troubled, added over
to the already heavy debts of the Artigianelli Boarding School. These difficulties made
problematic the life of the family home: that students’ hostel was, on several occasions,
closed, reopened, and finally merged with that of the workers.
Some projects could not be realized (for instance that of a night dormitory), but
the institution still survived, with its fifty guests, until after Murialdo’s death43.
Among the institutions that formed as a unitary educational complex run by the
Charity Association there was also the San Giuseppe Institute of Volvera (Turin),
opened by Murialdo in 1881. It was at the same time the first house entirely owned by
the congregation. It welcomed the youngest boys, before they could begin their
professional training at the Artigianelli or in the agricultural school. A group of
seminarians, still young boys, and some clerics students of philosophy oriented towards
religious life in the young Congregation of Saint Joseph were also hosted there44.
From the time of his appointment as Rector (1866) until the foundation of the
Volvera Educational Institute fifteen years had elapsed. Murialdo had improved the
institutions already in existence before his arrival and had founded new ones. That of
the Charity Association was by now an articulated and harmonious complex, able to
meet the needs of poor and neglected children in a rather flexible way, accompanying
them from the elementary level (Volvera), through professional training (Collegio
Artigianelli, agricultural school), until entering the world of work (family home).

5. Commitment to the Catholic movement

42
On the reformatory of Bosco Marengo cf. MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp. 97-105; REFFO, Don
Cocchi e i suoi Artigianelli, pp. 48-54; DOTTA, Murialdo, II, 123-149.
43
Cf. MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp. 149-163; REFFO, Vita 1920, pp. 121-131; DOTTA, Murialdo,
II, pp. 249-272.
44
Cf. MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp. 163-167; REFFO, Vita 1920, pp. 117-120; DOTTA, Murialdo,
II, pp. 365-370.

14
 The social sensitivity developed in the oratories of the outskirts of Turin and
deepened in the daily sharing of life with the poor and neglected children of his welfare
works, had perhaps to make it appear spontaneous and even dutiful to Murialdo his
active insertion into the nascent Catholic movement, which was «the lay response of
Catholicism to the liberal secularization of State and society»45.
He committed himself first of all to the Unione Operaia Cattolica (Catholic
Workers’ Union), founded in Turin on June 29, 1871 with the aim of bringing together
workers and artisans in an association with a christian spirit, as opposed to secular or
explicitly anti-clerical organizations. In chronological order it was one of the first
catholic workers’ societies in Piedmont (the liberal, or Mazzinian or even socialist ones
were then more than 350). Among the main promoters were the journalist Stefano Scala,
his brother Ruggero, Pietro Delucca, who was the first president, Ermanno Reffo,
treasurer, along with some other lay people and some priests. The association was aimed
at workers, artisans, small traders... to whom it proposed some commitments of a
religious and educational nature and offered some opportunities related to mutual aid
and, progressively, other economic, cultural and even recreational activities.
The development of the Union was slow but steady and led its leaders to set up
«sections» in the various city parishes, while some unions of Catholic workers
aggregated to that of Turin began to arise in other towns and cities outside the
Piedmontese capital. A reform of the statutes, commissioned in 1874 by archbishop
Gastaldi46, provided for the establishment of a Promoting Committee and a Central
Council. Saverio Provana di Collegno was chosen as President of the Promoting
Committee, while the ecclesiastical assistant was canon Ludovico Chicco. Among the
members we must remember Stefano Scala and Pietro Delucca, already mentioned, and
then Alberto Buffa and Paolo Pio Perazzo.
The President of the Central Council was the printer Pietro Marietti. Ecclesiastical
assistant canon Augusto Berta47. Murialdo began to attend the Catholic Workers’ Union,
he joined it and «began to favour it», as Fr. Reffo, his first biographer, reports, from his
earliest beginnings, «requested and insistently asked for his suggestions and advice
highly esteemed by those who appreciated his zeal and his spirit of sacrifice» 48. After
all, it is Fr. Reffo himself who affirms that «when Catholics began to agitate for
vigorous and effective action in Italy, he could rightly be considered as one of the first
to promote that healthy stirring and to make himself an apostle of it»49.
A few years later, and precisely in 1876, he became ecclesiastical assistant to the
Promoting Committee and then a member of the Central Council, starting in 1880,

45
Maria Luisa TREBILIANI, La genesi del movimento cattolico, in Dizionario storico del movimento
cattolico. Aggiornamento 1980-1995, a cura di Francesco TRANIELLO e Giorgio CAMPANINI, Marietti,
Genova 1997, p. 2. For a summary of Murialdo’s action within the Turin and Piedmontese Catholic
movement, I therefore refer to my work on La nascita del movimento cattolico a Torino e l’Opera dei
Congressi (1870-1891), Piemme, Casale Monferrato 1999.
46
Gastaldi followed favorably the Unione Operaia Cattolica and he also recommended the
establishment of worker’s societies with a christian spirit in the diocesan synod of 1873 and in the
pastoral letter of October 5 of the same year, «perhaps the first pastoral letter of an Italian bishop on
the social and worker question» (Giuseppe TUNINETTI, Lorenzo Gastaldi 1815-1883, II, Arcivescovo
di Torino: 1871-1883, Piemme, Casale Monferrato 1988, p. 219).
47
For all these informations cf. DOTTA, La nascita del movimento cattolico a Torino, pp. 104-119.
48
REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 82.
49
Ib., p. 77.

15
maintaining the position of assistant or deputy assistant until 189150. It is also Fr. Reffo
who testifies that in the Turin Catholic associations Murialdo «was for many years
ecclesiastical assistant and promoter and soul»51, thus recognizing him an important role
that derived from his personality, from his long educational activity, his assiduous
mixing with the working classes of the Turin suburbs and also his foreign experiences,
especially French, with which he came into contact thanks to his numerous trips abroad.
Among the main initiatives of the Union it is worth mentioning the foundation in
1876 of a monthly newsletter entitled «Unioni Operaie Cattoliche» («Catholic Workers’
Unions»). It was printed in the printing shop of the Artigianelli Boardong School. In
1883 it took the title «La Voce dell’Operaio» and in 1895 it became a weekly
newspaper. The periodical, which still exists today with the headline «La Voce e il
Tempo» («The Voice and the Time») and is now the weekly magazine of the diocese of
Turin, conquered its own ideological identity of moderate intransigence, and a good
number of readers. This swelled noticeably, especially from 1895, when Fr. Eugenio
Reffo, who had already been part of the editorial staff of the «Unità Cattolica» and of
the «Italia Reale» began to regularly collaborate with it52.
The various activities of the Catholic Workers’ Union (mutual aid, placement
committee, Sunday recreational Centre, evening catechisms, pension fund...) were
carried out by various people and generally it appeared more as the work of a group
than of individuals. According to the documentation known so far, it is therefore
fruitless to try to verify how decisive was the contribution of this or that person to each
achievement. This also applies to Murialdo: his faithful, constant, sacrificed
commitment was much appreciated. Yet, and for the aforementioned reasons, it is not
possible to rigorously establish its actual incidence, even though he was one of the few
priests who in the 1870s took an interest in the problems of workers in Turin in a
manner that went beyond the traditional pastoral tasks of the clergy 53. The very fact that
Murialdo, for such a long time, held the post of ecclesiastical assistant or vice-assistant
demonstrates the esteem with which he was surrounded in the circle of Catholic workers
and the trust that the archbishops of Turin always placed in him. Another confirmation
comes from the interventions and speeches he gave at congresses, conventions and
meetings of the workers of Turin or other locations54. They do not contain particularly
acute diagnoses of the society of his time, nor do they propose solutions that deviate
from a moralizing reading of the social situation, but they are in any case the sign of
interest, attention, involvement and were accompanied by the educational initiatives that
he led, some of which (oratories, Artigianelli Boarding School, agricultural school,
family home) had a strong significance and an effective social impact.
Another sector of the catholic movement in which Murialdo was involved was
that of the Opera dei Congressi, a national organization that aimed at coordinating
50
Cf. DOTTA, La nascita del movimento cattolico a Torino, p. 126.
51
Testimony of Fr. Reffo, Apostolic Process, I, p. 73. The three manuscript volumes containing
the transcription of the entire Apostolic Process for the cause of beatification (1923-1926) are found
in the Archivio Centrale Giuseppino, Rome, 1.6.1.3.
52
The first official issue, that of June 1876, was printed in 400 copies, which rose to 900 in 1879,
to 1,300 in 1881 and to 4,000 in 1891. At the death of Reffo in 1925, the newspaper circulated over
28,000 copies. In an unspecified period (but probably around 1915), 33,000 copies were reached (cf.
DOTTA, La nascita del movimento cattolico a Torino, pp. 119-120 and n. 97).
53
Other priests active in the Turin catholic labor movement at that time were the canon Ludovico
Chicco and the Fr. Augusto Berta, along with some parish priests and some vice curates.
54
Cf. for instance Scritti, IX, pp. 166-177; 226-236; 254-255; cf. also, Ep., IV, 1712 (Letter of August
14 of 1879 that witness his interest for a legisation of work, above all minors).

16
activities and at promoting and supporting the presence and influence of Catholics in the
Italian society. Murialdo was part of the Piedmontese Regional Committee within which
he devoted himself above all to the sector of the catholic press and popular libraries.
The foundation in Turin in February 1883 of the “Association for the
dissemination of the good press under the special protection of Saint Charles
Borromeo” was due to him and to a few other collaborators. The next step was an
attempt to link up the various associations in Italy dealing with the dissemination of the
catholic press. During the sixth Italian Catholic Congress (Naples, October, 10-14,
1883) Murialdo started what was then called the League among the various societies for
the dissemination of the good press. It was a national association, or rather, a federation
of companies, of which the Turin one founded by Murialdo was one of the members. At
the same time it played the role of promoter and operational centre for reciprocal
communication.
A few months later (January 1884), Murialdo gave life to the monthly bulletin «La
Buona Stampa» («The Good Press»), an organ of the Saint Charles Association of
Turin, but also the connection newsletter of the newly formed League, to which had
adhered, in the meantime, the companies of Rome, Naples, Venice, Ancona, Genova,
Palermo, Milan and Savona, as well as of course Turin, the promoting company.
The Saint Charles Association of Turin was dedicated to the founding of popular
libraries, that is, small libraries that loaned books and which were based in catholic
associations, parishes, religious houses, or rented premises. Another sector of activity
was the distribution (at very cheap prices) of books to parish committees, associations,
sections of the Catholic Workers’ Union, oratories, as well as the free distribution of
various booklets and brochures. At the executive level, Saint Charles Association saw
Murialdo as president and head of publications at its top, and some lay people, such as
Alberto Sallier della Torre, in charge of propaganda, Alberto Buffa, who took care of the
popular libraries, Giacinto Bricarelli, secretary, and Roberto Castelli, treasurer.
At the end of 1884 the Permanent General Committee of the Opera dei Congressi
decided to establish Sections, that is, stable working groups that had the task, in
connection with the Committee itself, to focus their reflection and their action on a
specific inherent sector of the Catholic movement. Turin had been thought of for the
Press Section, presumably because the Bolognese leaders of the organization and
Paganuzzi himself, at that time very active vice-president, had noticed Murialdo’s
interest in the subject, had heard about his activity, and, perhaps mainly thanks to the
congress of Naples and the bulletin «La Buona Stampa», they had heard of the many
popular libraries founded in Piedmont and of the League advocated by the Turin priest.
The project, however, did not prosper, due to a severe bronchitis, which soon
turned into pneumonia, which struck Murialdo at the end of 1884 and brought him very
close to death. A few months passed before Murialdo recovered. And it was an
incomplete recovery, with negative consequences and relapses in the following years.
For this reason, and for the other relevant tasks that were keeping him very busy (his
youth works and the congregation), Murialdo had to greatly reduce his activity within
the Catholic movement, even if his formal resignation from all positions will be
submitted only in 1891.
At the end of 1885 the short season of the bulletin «La Buona Stampa» also ended
and thus the tendency of the Saint Charles Association of Turin to act as a link between
the various Italian companies dedicated to the same apostolate. However, the activity of
the same association continued, and it did not fail in its most immediate and most

17
characteristic commitment in the region, that of popular libraries and the dissemination
of the popular catholic press.
Murialdo was replaced, as president, first by Alberto Sallier della Torre and then
by Francesco Viancino, while the association was now almost the only visible element,
in Turin and Piedmont, of the Regional Committee of the Opera dei Congressi, which at
least until the mid-90s proved to be always not very active, with the exception of the
good press sector.
Summarizing a decade of activity, and drawing his data from a report printed in
1893, Fr. Reffo stated «that the libraries founded at that time by the Association were
94, that the volumes assigned to them were about 15,000, and that the books and
pamphlets distributed free of charge amounted to about 40,000»55.
Wanting to summarize the entire apostolic parable of Murialdo in the Catholic
movement, one notices in him a marked sensitivity towards two “frontier” sectors, that
of the workers and that of the press, in which the presence of the Church was by now
marginal, two fields of missionary action, true apostolates in which the Church could
not help but by investing energy, people, resources.
He succeeded in gaining the collaboration of the laity and, in the case of the press,
not only of men, but also of many women, making all of them responsible for their tasks
as educators in the family and witnesses in society, also with the assumption of service
functions in associations directly aimed at the apostolate.
Murialdo deserved appreciation for his ability to collaborate, for his availability
for cooperative apostolic actions, apostolate of the Church, even at the cost of losing
some of his autonomy, convinced that collaboration and union are not only means, but
values in themselves, paths that in themselves reach their end, that of building the
ecclesial community. And this without objecting to other modalities of action, perhaps
even more brilliant from the point of view of results, which he nonetheless appreciated
and praised.
A further feature of Murialdo’s commitment to the Catholic movement is the
search for unity between the various associations. While working in the Opera dei
Congressi, in which the tendency towards central control was strong (but Murialdo was
also part of the Catholic Workers’ Union, less pyramidal), he conceived the unity of
Catholics more as a federation of groups and movements than as a rigid centralization.
However, he did not renounce to enrich his and others’ experiences with the circulation
of information, to perfect methods and means with the exchange of publications, to
coordinate efforts in view of a better and more effective presence in society.

6. The foundation of the Congregation of Saint Joseph

The idea of founding a new religious congregation was originally born in the
mind of the Fr. Berizzi, at the time he was Rector of the Artigianelli Boarding School.
He thus wished to secure a stable group of well-prepared educators for the school,
willing to dedicate themselves with a spirit of sacrifice to the apostolate in the midst of
poor and neglected young people.

55
REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 88. For a entire presentation of the Association of good press and the activities
were promoted, cf. DOTTA, La nascita del movimento cattolico a Torino, pp. 293-330; 357-406; REFFO,
Vita 1920, pp. 85-89.

18
 A first step was the establishment (March 24, 1867) of an association dedicated to
St. Joseph. At the beginning, the people enrolled were 17: Murialdo, Fr. Costantino, Fr.
Reffo, Fr. Berizzi (who, however, would soon move to Biella), some other priests, some
clerics and some «student-teachers», that is, young people who had started their studies
but were already teaching and assisting within the school. Then there were some
«coadjutors», young people who had finished their training in some art and who
voluntarily remained in the school to help the assistants at recreation time and in the
dormitories, and to “assist” the instructors during laboratory hours56.
It was Murialdo who had inherited from Berizzi not only the responsibility of the
Artigianelli Boarding School, but also the idea and the burden of progressively
transforming that “confraternity” into a real religious congregation. It was so also
because the other two priests (Fr. Costantino and Fr. Reffo) who were devoting
themselves full-time to the institution, were much younger than him. However, Fr. Reffo
deserved credit for keeping alive «the idea of the foundation of a religious congregation
dedicated to the Opera degli Artigianelli; he also had the task of constantly encouraging
the realization of the project»57.
Murialdo «prayed and asked for advice»58, consulting Fr. Blengio, his confessor,
Fr. Icard, archbishop Gastaldi and other people he trusted, until he finally founded the
Congregation of Saint Joseph on March 19, 1873, in the Artigianelli Boarding School of
Turin. Fr. Giulio Costantino, Fr. Eugenio Reffo, Fr. Sebastiano Mussetti, the clerics
Marcello Pagliero and Pier Giuseppe Milanese took their annual religious vows with
him. There were also two other clerics, Ernesto Canfari and Natale Leone, who were
beginning the novitiate59.
The new religious institute had as its purpose «the sanctification of its members,
through the educational works of poor or ill-disciplined young people 60. The
congregation took its name from Saint Joseph because it saw in him, as the «guardian»
of Jesus child and adolescent, the model of every educator, especially of those who
dedicate themselves to the apostolate among young workers and wanted to imitate his
humility, charity, and industriousness.
The field of activity of the first confreres was naturally the Artigianelli Boarding
School, within which the congregation was born, almost in secret and while most of the
educators and collaborators were unaware of it. Another community was based in the
Bosco Marengo reformatory, while some confreres from Turin cooperated on Sundays
and during Lent in the Oratory of San Martino in Borgo Dora61.

56
Cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, III, pp. 13-22; this “association” was officially called the «Congregation of
St. Joseph». However, in order not to confuse it with the actual congregation, founded in 1873, the
custom of calling it the «Confraternity of St. Joseph» has become widespread. You can read the regulation
in Aldo MARENGO (a cura di), Le norme costituzionali della Congregazione di San Giuseppe dagli inizi
al 1969, (Centro Storico Giuseppini del Murialdo, Fonti e Studi, 1), Libreria Editrice Murialdo, Roma
1986, pp. 21-25.
57
MARENGO, Murialdo fondatore, p. 227.
58
REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 92; cf. Test., pp. 184-186.
59
Cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, III, pp. 23-35.
60
Regolamento della Congregazione di San Giuseppe, 1873, part I, article IV, in MARENGO (a cura
di), Le norme costituzionali della Congregazione di San Giuseppe, p. 35.
61
The Oratory of San Martino had been founded by Fr. Cocchi in 1852 but soon passed under the
management of Fr. Ponte, then of Fr. Lana, finally of Fr. Gloria, even if the ultimate responsibility lye
on the Rector of the Artigianelli Boarding School, as the oratory was one of the many initiatives born
under the impulse of Fr. Cocchi. At the end of 1871 not only the juridical responsibility, but also the
«ecclesiastical» leadership was taken over by Murialdo, who, with the help of his own confreres,

19
 The confreres of Saint Joseph engaged themselves from the beginning, since its
foundation in 1878, in the educational management of the agricultural school of Rivoli,
though it belonged to the Association of Charity. In 1880 Murialdo began the Oratory of
the Sacred Heart in Rivoli, entrusted to the care of the brothers residing in the
agricultural school. They used to open it on holidays, with the frequent presence of
Murialdo himself who, as far as possible, also participated in the activities of the other
oratory, that of San Martino62.
As mentioned above, the Saint Joseph Institute of Volvera, opened in 1881, was
the first institution entirely owned by the congregation. It housed the children of the
primary school and the students of the secondary. Practically it was a form of
collaboration between the Charity Association and the congregation, which hosted the
younger children in Volvera before they entered the Boarding School of Turin or the
agricultural school of Rivoli. But the Volvera institute was actually opened in order to
be the first real house of formation of the congregation. From September 1888 it
became the seat of the novitiate which was transferred there from the agricultural school
of Rivoli63.
Meanwhile, the congregation, which had obtained diocesan approval in 1875, had
begun to expand outside Piedmont, in a slow and laborious development, also marked,
in 1885, by a time of deep crisis64. In 1883, however, the first institution was opened in
Veneto (a ‘patronato’ that is, an oratory for children, in Venice), followed by others in
Oderzo (1889), Vicenza (1890), Bassano (1891), Rovereto (1894), and Correggio
(1897). The Sacro Cuore Institute was opened in Modena in 1899 and another oratory in
Carpi also in 189965. Outside Piedmont, therefore, the first confreres were assigned to
youth works of a popular character (the ‘patronati’) whose activity was similar to that of
the Turin oratories so dear to Murialdo. This choice was evidently due to other factors
as well: the specific requests coming from local realities, the reduced financial burden
compared to other modalities of presence such as schools and welfare works, the
satisfaction of real needs of a pastoral and social nature given by the very oratories.
Often the educational activity of the oratory was accompanied by that of the elementary

cared for catechetical instructions, liturgical celebrations, prayer and preaching. At the oratory, a close
cooperation was established between the “ecclesiastical leadership”, entrusted to a priest, and the
“disciplinary” one (or organizational) given to members of the Conference of Saint Vincent, who
were very fond of helping apprentices and young workers. In 1877 the oratory was transferred to a
new place, which had been built for this purpose in what is today via Aosta, and located at the
intersection with Lungo Dora Firenze (cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, III, pp. 51-69).
62
On the Oratory of Sacred Heart of Rivoli cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, III, pp. 75-93.
63
Cf. REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 99; MARENGO, Murialdo fondatore, p. 586; MARENGO, Murialdo
educatore, p. 167.
64
The shortage of personnel and excessive work had created discontent and disappointment in
some confreres, according to whom the congregation did not adequately train its members in
religious life and the apostolate. Fr. Pier Giuseppe Milanese, who had been one of the first six
confreres and who carried out the duties of novice master, complained of the impossibility of
seriously planning the novitiate, studies, regularity of religious life: «There is no novitiate, one does
not study and one cannot study; here are the two main points for which one cannot wait for one’s own
sanctification especially as religious and one does not become capable of educating and instructing
the youth» (Ep., III, 1039: letter from Murialdo to Fr. Reffo, of 24 March 1885). Fr. Milanese would
then leave the congregation in August 1885 to enter the Society of Jesus (cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, III,
pp. 136-154).
65
In this quick review I have not mentioned some works opened in those years but soon closed
for various reasons. Cf. however DOTTA, Murialdo, III, pp. 98-127; 155-232; 243-249; 263-274; 299-
314.

20
school. At Oderzo Murialdo then agreed to open a «boarding school for young people of
civil status», despite the strong perplexities of his and other confreres, deriving from the
fact that «it seemed that this was not the mission of the Josephites». Murialdo «thought
it well to follow in this, as on other occasions, the line drawn by Providence, which
explains his will through the natural and spontaneous concurrence of circumstances».
Since in the Oderzo area, Fr. Reffo writes, «the civilized families only had the
alternative either of our institution, or of boarding schools, created for reasons of
speculation and not animated by a religious spirit», Murialdo «surrendered to these
reasons [...], persuaded to do God’s will in this, and consented to the foundation of the
boarding school, on condition that the “patronato” would also be maintained» 66. The
boarding school in Oderzo, begun with two students in the autumn of 1890, expanded in
the following school year, while a small secondary school was launched in an informal
way (October 1891), which, starting from the 1893-94 school year, would be established
on increasingly more solid foundations67. In the meantime, the congregation had
obtained the Decretum laudis (1890) and was moving towards final approval by the
Holy See (1897). Furthermore, under the inspiration of Murialdo and thanks to Fr. Reffo
who was its editor and to the older confreres who discussed them in the Superior
Council, the legislative texts that outlined their spiritual identity and apostolic
commitment were developed68.

7. The spiritual and apostolic charism

«The spirituality of St. Leonard Murialdo, while being nourished by sources of a

more varied nature, in particular by the school of St. Francis de Sales, of St. Alphonsus
and subsequently by the Ignatian school of mystical tendency, especially French, has its
central nucleus in the biblical conviction of God’s merciful love»69.
The joyful discovery of God’s mercy after the youth crisis in Savona was the
centre around which his interior experience and his entire existence would gradually be
unified. Sin and forgiveness, abandonment and mercy marked his whole life from then
on, in a progressively more interior and deeper way. Many years later, in the Spiritual
Testament, he will recall his «conversion»: «In 1843, on my return from the boarding
school of Savona, true prodigal son, laden with a thousand sins, I came to confess to
you: - Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you -. Then you opened your
paternal heart to my prayer, you listened to this prayer, and you returned to the
66
REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 149.
67
Cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, III, pp. 178-190.
68
Cf. MARENGO, Murialdo fondatore, pp. 69-248; Giuseppe FOSSATI, Una storia per la vita. Le
Costituzioni della Congregazione di san Giuseppe, I, Genesi e fonti, (Centro Storico Giuseppini del
Murialdo, Fonti e Studi, 8/1), Libreria Editrice Murialdo, Roma 2003, pp. 29-59.
69
Giuseppe FOSSATI, La spiritualità del Murialdo, in San Leonardo Murialdo amico fratello e padre,
Libreria Editrice Murialdo, Roma 2000, p. 18. In summary, among the sources of Murialdo’s spirituality
we can include: the traditional ascetic doctrines, from the Imitation of Christ to the Ignatian school,
especially mystical (Varin, Surin, De Caussade, Saint-Jure, Sellier); the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales;
the French school, with the Trinitarian and Christological doctrine of de Bérulle and Olier, together with
the charitable realism of Saint Vincent de Paul; the Italian affective piety and the pastoral concreteness of
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, the devotional forms that gravitated around the sanctuaries of Lourdes, La
Salette, Issoudun, Paray-le-Monial (cf. Giovanni MILONE, Leonardo Murialdo, in Dizionario degli Istituti
di Perfezione diretto da Guerrino PELLICCIA [1962-1968] e da Giancarlo ROCCA [1969-2003], vol. V,
Edizioni Paoline, Roma 1978, col. 595).

21
possession of a soul destined to be your temple, but which it had long been only a home
of demons. Oh! How I became, then, sensitive to your infinite mercy!»70.
He felt «the truly paternal welcome» of an «infinitely good, infinitely merciful
God» and this moving experience of God’s forgiveness and love continued in the
71

wonder of being called to the priestly life, which he had never thought of first, and to
the religious one, to which he had not felt to be attracted72.
The experience of God’s mercy thus became the central core of his spirituality.
«Conscious of being continually loved by God, in an infinite, tender and above all
merciful way, Murialdo committed himself with all his strength to respond to the
«infinite» love of God with an «infinite» love, that is, with all of himself. This is the
spiritual tension that accompanied Murialdo throughout his life and which took shape in
trusting abandonment to the Father’s Providence, in docility to the divine will, in
intense prayer, penance and active charity» 73. It was also a process of «purification», a
passage from an idea of God marked by the fear of hell (according to the religious
mentality of the time, which was also abundantly present in Murialdo’s writings and
catechesis) to a concept of God more linked to the biblical theme of mercy74.
This faith conviction became the charism that he intentionally wanted to pass on
to his «dear sons and brothers», that they could draw from it «an unshakable trust» 75 in
such merciful God and would spread everywhere the «knowledge of the infinite, actual
and individual love that God has for all men [...] and of the personal love he has for
each one in particular»76. This is the first of the two wishes he left as a «spiritual
testament» to his congregation. The second desire is part of the same existential
discovery: to live and spread devotion to Mary channel of grace and mother of mercy77.
The conviction that God is personal, tender, infinite and above all merciful love
for each of us led Murialdo to the certainty, not only mental but existential, that God’s
will is the true good of man: «therefore his will must be sought by me, accepted,
lovingly fulfilled»78. From it derived the loving and joyful acceptance of the roads that
God gradually showed him, even if they were not always according to his plans: the
weight of the direction of the Artigianelli Boarding School, with its environmental and
economic difficulties, the foundation of the Congregation of Saint Joseph, the opening
of new activities and new houses, the death of family members and diseases that
undermined his health. This also resulted in the search for God’s will as it is expressed
in the daily routine of ordinary actions, in the «present moment» as the «place» of
God’s love and love for God: «Every moment carries with it a duty that must be
70
Test., p. 201.
71
Test., p. 173 and p. 209.
72
«But here the good Lord still wanted to make his goodness and generosity shine in a totally
singular way. Not only did he admit me back into his friendship, but he called me to a choice of
predilection: he called me to the priesthood, to the priestly life and this only a few months after my
return to him» (Test., p. 143). «As for the religious vocation, it was even more a gift not only
gratuitous, but imposed with amiable violence. I never thought of and never imagined myself
becoming a religious one day. Because of my penchant for freedom, I had a certain aversion to being
religious. And yet the good Lord did it!» (Test., p. 183; cf. also p. 156).
73
FOSSATI, Storia di una conversione, p. 15.
74
Cf. ib., pp. 37-38.
75
Test., p. 125.
76
Test., p. 161.
77
Cf. Test., pp. 169-171.
78
Aldo MARENGO, La spiritualità di S. Leonardo, in San Leonardo Murialdo amico fratello e padre,
Libreria Editrice Murialdo, Roma 2000, p. 12.

22
fulfilled with fidelity: this is enough to reach perfection. This instant is like a messenger
who declares the will of God: the faithful heart always pronounces the fiat. [...] The
character of this spirit of faith is that it has nothing experiential or extraordinary, but
divinizes common and experiential things. This is what Our Lady and St. Joseph
practiced at Nazareth»79.
It was an abandonment to Providence characterized by a sense of an active and at
the same time obedient search, «waiting and not anticipating the hour of Providence» 80,
in the loving response to the love of God through the apostolate among poor young
people, through prayer and through ascesis. From this derives the long effort to
eradicate what he considered his main defects (vainglory, indolence, lukewarmness), his
spirit of penance and mortification, the acceptance of humble and hidden life, according
to the model of St. Joseph and of the Holy Family.
And all this in a daily intertwining of a strong search for God in prolonged prayer
before the Blessed Sacrament, with the devout celebration of the Eucharist, the
contemplation of Christ’s love through devotion to his Sacred Heart, and in the
meditation of his Passion. Fr. Reffo writes that Murialdo «was a man of action and
prayer, and even more of prayer than of action»81.
However, «the abandonment to Divine Providence did not enclose Saint Leonard
into sterile intimism, but projected him toward an activity rich in initiatives at apostolic
and social level»82. His main field of action was that of to welcome and educate poor
and abandoned young people. He was not a pedagogue, but an educator, he was not a
thinker and a writer, but a priest dedicated to the formation of young people, especially
those most in need of acceptance, support and affection. His anthropological beliefs are
inspired by the christian vision of world and of life. His ideas and achievements in the
educational field are based on the long experience of christian pedagogy, which he
conducted in harmony with his collaborators, within the Association of Charity and in
the works governed by the congregation he founded.
The events of his life, his readings, his contacts with various personalities,
especially in France, explain some peculiarities of his educational system. Family
education and the spiritual experience he lived (the discovery of God’s merciful love
after the youth crisis) contributed to giving the character of patience, gentleness, selfless
love and trust to his educational action.
The environment of the Artigianelli then, with its tradition based on training
through work, constituted for him an additional wealth, which he succeeded in acquiring
and improving. Another source of explicit inspiration for Murialdo was Don Bosco,
with his preventive method made up of a vigilant and loving presence, but above all of
christian formation, preparation for work, education, games and the active involvement
79
These are expressions taken from a French pamphlet of which Murialdo edited two editions
(1869 and 1873) in Italian with the title Della vita di fede. The unknown author had compiled it,
taking it almost entirely from the treatise The abandonment to divine Providence by the Jesuit Jean-
Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751). Murialdo spread the knowledge of it because he found in it a great
affinity with his inner world and ascetic and spiritual emphases particularly dear to him. Cf. Giuseppe
FOSSATI, L’opuscolo «Della vita di fede» nella sua storia redazionale e nell’esperienza spirituale di
San Leonardo Murialdo, (Centro Storico Giuseppini del Murialdo, Fonti e Studi, 4), Libreria Editrice
Murialdo, Roma 1993. The expressions cited can be found on p. 46 and on p. 56.
80
REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 92.
81
REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 256. The whole second part of Murialdo’s life written by Fr. Reffo is dedicated
to the description of the spiritual and ascetic figure of the Turin saint. Cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, III, pp. 357-
378.
82
FOSSATI, La spiritualità del Murialdo, p. 20.

23
of children. With Don Bosco Murialdo shared the apostolic anxiety for the temporal and
eternal salvation of the young and the paternal and loving style in the educational
relationship.
Finally, among the inspirational sources of Murialdo’s pedagogy, his travels
abroad are of considerable importance. The French congresses helped him to keep
himself abreast of educational and social issues. Contacts with other religious
congregations (Frères de Saint-Joseph of Cîteaux, Frères de Saint-Vincent of Paris, the
congregation of the Sacred Heart of Timon David, of Marseille) not only offered models
for the foundation and structuring of the Congregation of Saint Joseph, but also
constituted a wealth that enriched the pedagogy of the Turinese educator. Without
leaving aside other influences (for example Dupanloup), among the people he came to
know and whom he met in France, the figure of Timon-David (1823-1891) emerges in
the pedagogical field. Murialdo often referred to his examples and pedagogical works.
The confrontation with the educator of Marseille strengthened Murialdo’s conviction of
the irreplaceable importance of supernatural means in the education of young people.
He also confirmed the choice, moreover common to many experiences of christian
pedagogy, of following the best children with more care and in separate groups, to make
them the leaven in the midst of other young people83.
Wanting to enclose in an extreme synthesis the main lines of Murialdo’s
pedagogy, we could first of all identify its recipients in the children and young people of
the working class, especially those «poor, orphaned or neglected or even just ill-
behaved»84: «Poor and neglected: these are the two requisites that make a young person
one of ours, and the poorer and more neglected he is, the more he is one of ours»85.
The objectives of his educational action are those of moral, civil and religious
formation. We need to work so that young people become «honest citizens, hardworking
and skilled workers, sincere and virtuous Christians» 86. The religious purpose (or as it
was said then, the «salvation of souls») was then strongly emphasized in Murialdo,
summarized in a motto dear to him, although not in line with the purest tradition of
classical Latin: ne perdantur, that they may not get lost87.
The method and style were those of mingling with children «by making himself
friend, brother and father to each of them» 88. In fact, one of the characteristics that
Murialdo wanted to pursue and pass on to his collaborators is that of family spirit
towards children but also among educators, wishing that among those who dedicate
themselves to educational tasks, a climate not only of collaboration and harmony, but of

83
Cf. DOTTA, Murialdo, III, pp. 331-355; Regolamento della Congregazione di San Giuseppe,
1873, part V, article XIV, in MARENGO (a cura di), Le norme costituzionali della Congregazione di
San Giuseppe, p. 51; La pedagogia del Murialdo, sintesi dei lavori del Seminario di studio della
Famiglia del Murialdo, Roma, 22-23 aprile 2003, a cura di Giovenale DOTTA, Libreria Editrice
Murialdo, Roma 2003.
84
Regolamento della Congregazione di San Giuseppe, 1873, part V, article I, in MARENGO (a cura
di), Le norme costituzionali della Congregazione di San Giuseppe, p. 50; cf. also part I, article IV, ib.,
p. 35; part V, article II, ib., p. 50.
85
Scritti, V, p. 6.
86
Scritti, X, p. 119.
87
Scritti, II, p. 178; IV, pp. 407; 499; 540; V, p. 4; IX, p. 420; Ep., V, 2156 e 2187.
88
Regolamento della Congregazione di San Giuseppe, 1873, part I, article IV, in MARENGO (a cura
di), Le norme costituzionali della Congregazione di San Giuseppe, p. 35.

24
true friendship be established89, to make it easier to implement and witness another of
the fundamental lines of murialdine pedagogy, that of sweetness and mercy90.
The modalities already discussed above, with which he was able to collaborate in
the local Church and with the laity, both in educational works and within the Catholic
movement, also belong to Murialdo’s apostolic charism. We note in him an ecclesial
sensitivity interwoven with esteem, love and obedience to the bishop of his city and of
the dioceses in which his congregation was to work. We also perceive the typical way of
acting in humility and charity91, in imitation of Saint Joseph, which he personally
practiced and taught to his spiritual children and his collaborators.

8. «A travel companion of ours»

Murialdo enjoyed good health up to 56 years of age. As Fr. Reffo writes, he was
«rather skinny, but healthy and of robust and resistant constitution»92.
His first serious illness was the one that marked the beginning of a downsizing of
his activities within the Catholic movement, in the early months of 1885, as already
mentioned. The recovery was slow and incomplete, given that in the following years
Murialdo had several worrying relapses, up to the last illness, the one that led to his
death, which occurred on March 30, 190093.
The journey that brought him to the honours of the altars saw a first significant
step in the beatification, by Paul VI, on November 3, 1963, and then ended with the
canonization, proclaimed by the same pontiff on May 3, 1970. His liturgical feast falls
on May 18.
It was Paul VI himself who sketched a portrait that remained exemplary and
which is worth listening to again in some of his passages. «The story [of Leonardo
Murialdo] is simple, it has no mysteries, it has no extraordinary adventures; it takes
place in a relatively quiet course, in the midst of well-known places, people and events.
[...] He is not a distant and difficult man, he is not a saint removed from our
conversation; he is our brother, he is our priest, he is our travel companion. However, if
we really approach him, we will not fail to experience that sense of admiration due to
great souls, when we become aware of a certain hidden interior depth, of a certain
inflexible constancy in so many difficult virtues, in so much gentleness in judgment,
behaviour and style, which will make us say what others, during his life, said on
meeting him, as if it were a joy-filling discovery: he is a saint! [...] And therefore this
judgment of a contemporary is aptly applied to him: «He was a man extraordinary in the
ordinary».[...] Today the Church bestows on him this honour and offers us as a model

89
Cf. Giovenale DOTTA, I punti-forza dell’esperienza educativa del Murialdo, in Salvatore
CURRÒ (a cura di), La formazione degli educatori dei ragazzi e dei giovani. Orientamenti per la
pastorale giovanile «giuseppina», Libreria Editrice Murialdo, Roma 1996, pp. 88-90; ID., La
pazienza educativa del Murialdo, in ib., pp. 175-177.
90
See the two studies cited in the previous note. For an analytical presentation of Murialdo’s ideas
and educational practice cf. MARENGO, Murialdo educatore, pp. 173-351.
91
Cf. Regolamento della Congregazione di San Giuseppe, 1873, part I, article XII, in MARENGO (a
cura di), Le norme costituzionali della Congregazione di San Giuseppe, p. 36; Scritti, IV, pp. 395-396.
92
REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 305.
93
Cf. REFFO, Vita 1920, pp. 313-326.

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this meek and kind man, this pious and exemplary priest, this wise and hardworking
founder»94.

94
Speech of Pope Paul VI on the occasion of Murialdo’s beatification, November 3, 1963, in
Eugenio REFFO, Vita di San Leonardo Murialdo Rettore degli Artigianelli di Torino sacerdote e
fondatore della Congregazione di S. Giuseppe, Casa Generalizia PP. Giuseppini, sesta ed., Roma
1964, pp. 368-375, passim. The praise referred to St. Leonard comes from the canon Giuseppe
Allamano (1851-1926), founder of the Missionaries of the Consolata, proclaimed blessed in 1990.
Allamano applied to Murialdo what had already been said of Cafasso: «he was a man extraordinary
in the ordinary» (REFFO, Vita 1920, p. 328).

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