Giuseppe Allamano

Having become rector of the Consolata shrine, Allamano undertook considerable restoration work starting in 1883-1885, then called upon the architect Carlo Ceppi for the interior expansion of the basilica in 1899. Also in 1899, he launched the monthly magazine La Consolata, in order to radiate spiritually beyond Turin. But the most decisive work of his life was born from a serious illness. In January 1900, Allamano contracted pneumonia which nearly took his life while he was caring for a poor woman. His recovery, which he attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Consolata, confirmed him in his project to found a missionary institute: "When I was near death, I made the promise, if I recovered, to found the Institute." On January 29, 1901, he founded the Consolata Missionaries (IMC), intended for priests and lay brothers at the service of non-Christian populations. The first four missionaries left for Kenya in May 1902. On January 29, 1910, encouraged by Pope Pius X who reportedly told him: "If you lack vocations, I will give them to you," he founded the Missionary Sisters of the Consolata. Allamano himself never left Italy, training his missionaries from Turin. In 1912, he addressed a petition to Pope Pius X for the institution of an annual day of prayer for the missions, a project that Pope Pius XI honored by establishing World Mission Day in 1927, one year after Allamano's death. His indispensable collaborator for forty-two years was Giacomo Camisassa, whose death plunged Allamano into mourning: "I have lost both my arms."

The spiritual thought of Giuseppe Allamano is articulated around a central conviction that he tirelessly repeated to his missionaries: 'First saints, then missionaries.' For him, being precedes acting: no one can give what they do not have (Nemo dat quod non habet). He exhorted his priests to aim not for ordinary holiness, but for extraordinary holiness: 'You must not only be saints, but extraordinarily saints.' This spiritual hierarchy was not a brake on missionary action but its only solid foundation. Allamano had learned this integration of holiness and charity from his childhood, from his mother and his uncle Joseph Cafasso, and then at the Oratory of John Bosco. His other motto, 'fare bene il bene' — to do good well —, expresses the same requirement for moral and apostolic quality. He saw in the priesthood a mission fundamentally missionary by nature, a greater love for Christ that pushes one to make Him known to those who do not yet know Him. His spiritually rooted devotion to Mary, nurtured by forty-six years at the Consolata sanctuary, led him to contemplate in Mary the Consoler the model of all apostolic service. The missionary charism he transmitted to his institutes unfolds along three axes: the mission ad gentes (to non-Christians), service to the poor (ad pauperes), and fraternal communion sealed by perpetual vows (ad vitam). Allamano's reputation for holiness was recognized during his lifetime, and the diocesan process for his beatification opened in Turin as early as 1944.

The diocesan process for the beatification of Giuseppe Allamano opened in Turin between 1944 and 1951, and was then formally introduced in Rome on January 19, 1952. The decree ratifying the inquiry was signed on October 5, 1984, and Pope John Paul II declared him venerable on May 13, 1989, after the recognition of his heroic virtues. The miracle accepted for the beatification—the unexplained healing of a lay missionary suffering from acute viral hepatitis with fulminant progression, studied in Kenya (Diocese of Nyeri) in 1975 and recognized as scientifically inexplicable on October 25, 1989—opened the way for the beatification, celebrated in St. Peter's Square on October 7, 1990, by John Paul II. For the canonization, the miracle examined was the healing of Sorino Yanomami, an Amerindian from the Brazilian Amazon attacked by a female jaguar on February 7, 1996—the first day of the novena in honor of Allamano. The animal fractured his skull and damaged his brain; after nine hours of transport to the hospital in Boa Vista, and despite the very grim prognosis of the doctors, Sorino woke up after about ten days without any neurological sequelae and returned to his village on May 8, 1996, completely healed. This miracle, declared scientifically inexplicable on September 14, 2023, was recognized by Pope Francis on May 23, 2024. The canonization took place on October 20, 2024, the Sunday of World Mission Day, in St. Peter's Square in Rome, alongside thirteen other new saints. His liturgical feast is set for February 16, the anniversary of his death.

The legacy of Saint Giuseppe Allamano radiates from Turin to the entire world, even though he himself never left Italy. The Consolata Missionaries (IMC) and the Consolata Missionary Sisters, present in more than thirty countries on six continents, bear witness to the fruitfulness of his charism. Starting from Kenya in 1902, his missionaries gradually extended their presence to Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania, and then to Latin America and Asia. World Mission Day, established by Pius XI in 1927 based on the project that Allamano had championed in 1912, constitutes another indirect fruit of his apostolate. His birthplace, Castelnuovo Don Bosco, has become an additional pilgrimage site linked to his memory, in a town that was also the cradle of Saint John Bosco and Saint Joseph Cafasso—a Piedmontese trio of which Allamano is like the natural extension. The Consolata Sanctuary in Turin remains a living Marian center where his memory is venerated. His canonization on October 20, 2024, during World Mission Day, was perceived as a providential sign: the founder of missionaries recognized as a saint precisely on this day dedicated to the universality of the mission. More than a thousand members of his institutes converged on Rome for the celebration. His patronage naturally extends to the missionaries and the congregations he founded.