Giuseppe Carraro

Giuseppe Carraro was born on 26 June 1899 in Mira, in the province of Venice in the Veneto region of northeastern Italy. He received his education and priestly formation at the seminary of Treviso. On 31 March 1923 he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Treviso by Bishop Andrea Giacinto Longhin. As a young priest he was entrusted with the formation of future clergy, serving as a professor and spiritual director at the diocesan seminary and later as its rector. In that setting he became known for personal austerity, attention to prayer, and a pastoral concern that extended beyond the seminary walls to ordinary people, especially the poor.

Pope Pius XII appointed him auxiliary bishop of Treviso in 1952, and he received episcopal consecration on 1 November of that year. In 1956 he was named Bishop of Vittorio Veneto. His government of that diocese lasted only a short time. In December 1958 Pope John XXIII transferred him to the Diocese of Verona, a larger and historically significant see in the same region of Italy. He was succeeded at Vittorio Veneto by Albino Luciani, who in 1978 would be elected pope as John Paul I. Carraro remained Bishop of Verona until 1978.

During his long episcopate in Verona he participated in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965. After the council he worked to introduce its liturgical and pastoral reforms in the diocese, promoting a style of ministry that emphasized closeness to the faithful, the apostolate of the laity, and care for workers and the sick. Observers and later witnesses in his cause of beatification described him as a bishop of simple habits who visited parishes and factories, avoided display, and sought to embody the council’s call for a more evangelical exercise of episcopal office. He resigned the diocese on 18 May 1978 after reaching the age at which bishops are asked to offer their resignation.

Carraro died in Verona on 30 December 1980. The memory of his life prompted the Diocese of Verona to introduce a cause for beatification, and he was granted the title Servant of God. On 16 June 2016 Pope Francis confirmed the decree on his heroic virtues, by which Carraro is honored as Venerable in the Catholic Church. He has not been beatified or canonized. No universal feast day has been assigned to him, nor is he the official patron of particular places or causes.