Blessed Edoardo Giuseppe Rosaz

Edoardo Giuseppe Rosaz (15 February 1830 – 3 May 1903) was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Susa from 1877 until his death and was the founder of the Franciscan Mission Sisters of Susa. He was appointed a bishop at the suggestion of John Bosco. His apostolic zeal became even greater as a bishop when he tended to abandoned people in the peripheries and encouraged the work of a range of different religious orders. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1991. Edoardo Giuseppe Rosaz was born on 15 February 1830 as the fifth of seven children to refugees in Susa; he was baptized in the Susa Cathedral on 16 February. His parents were refugees due to the French Revolution. His father drowned himself in the Po River in 1845 and his brother Carlo Vittorio died sometime after in a mental hospital. His sister Clotilde also suffered from epileptic episodes which made life difficult for him and those around him. He was tutored at home until 1840 when he attended the Gianotti di Saluzzo school in Turin from 1840 to 1845. Rosaz became a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis in 1853 and began his ecclesial studies in 1847 which completed his studies in Nice in France where he was ordained to the priesthood. Rosaz began to serve as a chaplain in prisons and he also opened a retreat for girls in 1862 while later befriending Giovanni Bosco; this friendship later saw him appointed as the rector of seminarians in Susa from 1874 to 1877. Pope Pius IX appointed him as the Bishop of Susa on 31 December 1877 - at Bosco's suggestion - and the Archbishop of Turin Lorenzo Gastaldi granted him his episcopal consecration in 1878 in the Susa Cathedral. He wept upon learning he was to be made a bishop and sent a letter to Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli protesting the appointment in spite of his lack of theological or canon law doctorate. He founded the Franciscan Mission Sisters on 4 October 1882 for women and at some stage issued a catechism.