Alfano Vaser

After his initial formation, Brother Alfano took his first vows in 1891. He was immediately sent to Rome, where the institute had just opened its first elementary school in Italy in 1886, the San Leone Magno College. He taught the youngest students there while pursuing his own studies. He brilliantly obtained his Italian state diplomas: that of a normal school teacher in 1895, then that of a French teacher in 1898. In 1903, he was assigned to Ventimiglia, a border town, to teach Italian language and literature to young Marist formands. His pedagogical sense and spiritual depth naturally designated him for formation: he held the delicate position of novice master from 1907 to 1922. After an interruption due to health problems that led him to stay briefly in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, Genoa, and Mondovì, he returned to Ventimiglia in 1925 as director of the scholasticate, a position he held until 1939. A man of remarkable tenacity, he began the in-depth study of Latin at the age of 50, which had become mandatory in Italian school curricula, and managed to acquire a perfect mastery of it. Alongside his formation duties, he was a provincial councilor of the institute without interruption for 32 years, from 1909 to 1941. He passed away on March 1, 1943, in Ventimiglia, in the midst of the Second World War.

The reputation for holiness of Brother Alfano spread rapidly after his death, both among his confreres and his former students. In 1949, the Bishop of Ventimiglia opened the diocesan informative process for his beatification. A tribunal was constituted to examine his spiritual writings, which proved to be of exceptional richness: they fill 96 notebooks for a total of nearly 7,000 handwritten pages. The cause was officially transmitted to Rome, to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, in 1951. In 1988, his mortal remains were transferred from Ventimiglia to the chapel of the San Leone Magno college in Rome, where he has since been venerated by the educational community.

On January 22, 1991, Pope John Paul II signed the decree recognizing the heroic nature of his theological and moral virtues, as well as his religious virtues. By this solemn act, Brother Alfano Vaser was proclaimed "venerable." His cause for beatification remains open, awaiting the official recognition of a miracle attributed to his intercession.

Brother Alfano's spirituality is deeply rooted in the charism of Saint Marcellin Champagnat, the founder of the Marist Brothers, of whom he strove to be a "living copy." He loved above all the rules of the institute and the writings of the founder, which he affectionately described as "the bread of our house" (il pane di casa nostra). His interior life was nourished by continual prayer and constant union with God amidst his activities as an educator. He practiced the Stations of the Cross daily, rising earlier each morning with the permission of his superiors to devote himself to it. His legacy is at once familial, spiritual, and social. His example inspired a true religious lineage: five of his nephews (the sons of his brother Alessandro) became Marist Brothers in their turn. In October 2016, his birthplace in Hône was restored and inaugurated under the name "Casa Fratel Alfano" to serve as a temporary reception center for migrants and people in difficulty, in collaboration with Caritas and the Diocese of Aosta, thus perpetuating his spirit of welcome and solicitude toward the youth and the most destitute.