Venerable Guglielmo Massaia

Guglielmo Massaia, OFM Cap. (born Lorenzo; 9 June 1809 - 6 August 1889) was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as a missionary and a Capuchin friar. Pope Francis named him Venerable on 1 December 2016. Guglielmo Massaia was born on 9 June 1809 in Piedmont as Lorenzo Antonio Massaia. He was first educated at the Collegio Reale at Asti under the care of his elder brother Guglielmo who served as a canon and precentor of Asti Cathedral. On the death of his brother he passed as a student to the diocesan seminary in 1824; but at the age of sixteen entered the Capuchin Franciscan Order, receiving the habit on 25 September 1825. He completed his studies at the seminary in 1826. He took the name "Guglielmo" around this time. Massaia was ordained to the priesthood on 16 June 1832 in Vercelli and served as a spiritual director at a hospital in Turin from 1834 to 1836. He served also as the confessor and advisor of Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo - future saint. He was appointed as a lector of theology; but even whilst teaching he acquired some fame as a preacher and was chosen confessor to Prince Victor Emmanuel, afterwards King of Italy, and Ferdinand, Duke of Genoa. The royal family of Piedmont would have nominated him on several occasions to an episcopal see, but he wanted to join the foreign missions of his order. He obtained his wish in 1846. That year the Congregation of Propaganda, at the instance of the traveller Antoine d'Abbadie, determined to establish the Apostolic Vicariate of Galla for the Oromo in Ethiopia. The mission was confided to the Capuchins, and Massaia was appointed as the first vicar-apostolic. He received episcopal consecration in Rome on 24 May of that year in the church of San Carlo al Corso. On his arrival in Ethiopia in 1856, he found the country in a state of religious agitation.