Blessed Giovanni Battista Piamarta

Giovanni Battista Piamarta (26 November 1841 - 25 April 1913) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and educator. Piamarta was also the founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Piamarta established his congregation in 1900 in order to promote Christian education across the Italian peninsula. Piamarta also founded the Humble Servants of the Lord. Piamarta was beatified on 12 October 1997 and was canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on 21 October 2012 in a celebration that Pope Benedict XVI presided over. Giovanni Battista Piamarta was born in Brescia on 26 November 1841 into a poor household; his father was a barber. Piamarta lost his mother at the age of nine in 1850 and spent time living in the slums of the town. His maternal grandfather sent him to the Oratory of Saint Thomas. His adolescence was difficult but thanks to the parish of Vallio Terme he entered the diocesan seminary. He was ordained to the priesthood on 23 December 1865 prior to Christmas and he began his pastoral mission in Carzago Riviera (Bedizzole), spending his first two decades in intense pastoral work, and is remembered as a priest "zealous, excellent, flawless in everything". In that time he was appointed as the priest (and later director) of the parish of Saint Alexander and later as the pastor of Pavone del Mella. Brescia was in the process of industrialization and Piamarta identified with the difficulties and hopes of disadvantaged adolescents due to his own experiences on the streets as a child. In 1886 he returned to Brescia. With Pietro Capetti and the Catholic Movement he started the Institute Artigianelli for the vocational and Christian education of the poorest children and adolescents on 3 December 1886. The "Workman's Institute" grew in workspaces and buildings, making it possible for many adolescents to receive a technical education. In 1889, he and Giovanni Bonsignori began the Agricultural Colony of Remedello.