Gaspar Bertoni

Gaspare Luigi Bertoni was born on 9 October 1777 in Verona, then belonging to the Republic of Venice, to Francesco Bertoni, a notary, and Brunora Ravelli. He grew up in a devout household of the urban professional class and showed an early inclination to prayer and to the priesthood. His elementary and secondary studies were undertaken in Verona, including at the college of Saint Sebastian, an institution long associated with the Jesuits before their suppression in the 1770s. In 1795 he entered the diocesan seminary. His formation took place against the background of the French Revolutionary Wars, the end of Venetian independence in 1797, and successive French and Austrian occupations that disrupted religious houses and ordinary parish life in the Veneto.

He was ordained a priest on 20 September 1800 for the Diocese of Verona. In the following years he dedicated himself to preaching, to the catechesis of children and adults, and to the Christian education of youth through oratories and the Company of Christian Doctrine. During the Napoleonic period he remained in the city and continued pastoral work under difficult conditions. He became a spiritual director and counsellor to Magdalene of Canossa as she founded the Canossian Daughters of Charity, and he encouraged other works of charity and instruction. His own interior life was shaped by meditation on the Passion of Christ, by frequent celebration of the Eucharist, and by devotion to Mary and Joseph under the title of the Holy Spouses.

On 4 November 1816 Bertoni gathered a small group of priests in a residence attached to the church of the Stigmata of Saint Francis in Verona, thereby founding the community that became the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata of Our Lord Jesus Christ, known as the Stigmatines. He intended an apostolic missionary congregation whose members would be available to bishops for preaching, the formation of clergy, the education of youth, and other ministries as needed. The spirituality of the institute joined contemplation of the wounded Christ to an active and obedient apostolate. Bertoni served as superior, drafted early constitutions, and formed the first companions while remaining incardinated in the diocese.

For much of his life he endured serious illness. A grave infection of the right leg, which never fully healed, caused him intense and prolonged pain and eventually confined him for long periods to his room. Despite this he continued to govern the congregation by letter and by receiving visitors, and he was regarded as a wise director of souls. He died in Verona on 12 June 1853. The Stigmatines obtained further canonical recognition in the decades after his death and later spread beyond Italy.

Devotion to Bertoni persisted in Verona and within his congregation. The cause of beatification advanced in the twentieth century. Pope Paul VI beatified him on 1 November 1975, and Pope John Paul II canonized him on 1 November 1989. His feast day is 12 June. He is venerated as the founder of the Stigmatines and as a priest who united missionary zeal with patient acceptance of suffering. His relics are kept in the church of the Stimmate in Verona.