Blessed Giacomo Alberione - Italy

Founder of the Society of St. Paul and the Daughters of St. Paul

Blessed Giacomo Alberione or James Alberione (4 April 1884 – 26 November 1971), also known as Santiago Alberione, was an Italian priest and publisher, the founder of the Society of St. Paul and the Daughters of St. Paul, besides other orders and institutes of the Pauline Family.

He was born on 4 April 1884 in San Lorenzo di Fossano, near Cuneo, northern Italy.  He was a seminarian in Bra and Alba and was the spiritual director for youth and altar servers in the Alba seminary. While doing nightly Eucharistic adoration in Alba on 31 December 1900 he suddenly felt that he was called to do something for the people of the new century.

He was ordained on 29 June 1907 and became a parish priest in Narzole. He was a director of the weekly publication Gazzetta d'Alba from September 1913. In 1914 he founded the Society of St. Paul, and in 1915 the Daughters of St. Paul, with the support of Mother Thecla. These congregations use modern media technology and published materials to spread the word of God, and help in personal devotions. Later in his life Blessed Giacomo also founded the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master (1924), the Sisters of the Good Shepherd (1938) and the Sisters of the Queen of Apostles (1957), all communities applying Pauline spirituality in various fields. He also founded four lay institutes and the Union of Pauline Cooperators.

Alberione died on 26 November 1971 at 6:26 p.m. in the Generalate House, Rome, of natural causes.

He was declared venerable on 25 June 1996 and beatified on 27 April 2003 by His Holiness Pope John Paul II.