Paolo Pio Perazzo

Paolo Pio Perazzo was actively involved with the working youth of Turin. In 1871, he joined the Blessed Sebastiano Valfrè Catholic Youth Circle, where he initiated circulating libraries and oratories. In 1874, he joined the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. In 1876, together with Saint Leonardo Murialdo and Domenico Giraud, he founded the bulletin "Unioni Operaie cattoliche," the ancestor of the current diocesan weekly "La Voce e il Tempo." A journalist and writer, he collaborated with several Catholic journals and published spiritual and social works, promoting the social doctrine of the Church.

Having become a Franciscan tertiary in 1875 within the Fraternity of San Tommaso in Turin, he organized the national congresses of the Third Order in 1894 and 1895. Deeply Eucharistic, he founded in 1891, with the sisters Teresa and Giuseppina Comoglio, the Work of Universal Perpetual Daily Adoration to the Most Blessed Sacrament, as well as the Association of the Pages of the Most Blessed Sacrament. He wrote a memorandum on the Eucharist intended for Pope Leo XIII. In October 1911, he was received in a private audience by Pope Saint Pius X, who warmly approved the international statutes of his work.

During his stay in Rome in October 1911, he was bitten by a rabid dog while saving a child. He died of rabies in Turin on November 22, 1911, the very day the decree approving his work was signed by Pius X. Initially buried in Nizza Monferrato, his body was transferred to the church of San Tommaso in Turin in 1953. His cause for beatification opened in Turin in 1925 and was introduced in Rome in 1961. On April 6, 1998, Pope John Paul II declared him Venerable, recognizing the heroic nature of his virtues.

Nicknamed the "saintly railwayman," Paolo Pio Perazzo is a model of lay holiness in the world of work. His spirituality is centered on the Eucharist, adoring Christ whom he calls the "divine prisoner." His legacy is perpetuated through the Arciconfraternita dell'Adorazione Quotidiana Universale Perpetua in Turin. He remains an inspiring figure for railway chaplaincies and labor pastoral care in Italy, bearing witness to the consistency of faith in the face of professional injustices.