Suggest an Edit — Giuseppe Di Donna

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Biography

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Giuseppe Di Donna was born on 3 January 1901 in Rutigliano, in the province of Bari in Apulia, then part of the Kingdom of Italy. He entered the Order of the Most Holy Trinity, commonly called the Trinitarians, a religious family founded in the late twelfth century whose historic mission joined the ransom of captives to works of mercy and devotion to the Trinity. After novitiate and studies he was ordained a priest on 18 March 1923. In the following years he lived the common life of his order in Italy and exercised priestly ministry, acquiring a reputation for personal austerity, regularity of prayer, and attention to people in hardship.

On 2 February 1940 Pope Pius XII appointed him Bishop of Andria, a historic diocese in Apulia. He was consecrated bishop on 26 May 1940 and governed the see through the Second World War, the German occupation of parts of Italy, Allied operations in the south, and the first years of the Italian Republic. Andria and the surrounding Murgia district shared the material want, displacement, and moral strain of that period. Diocesan memory presents his government as one of presence among the faithful: parish visitations, care for the seminary and clergy, and encouragement of Catholic Action and other lay associations while civil and religious life were being rebuilt.

Later local tradition describes him as a bishop of simple habits who identified with the poor and with agricultural laborers rather than with ceremonial display. He sought to keep a Trinitarian emphasis on mercy in his pastoral program, stressing catechesis, the sacraments, and aid to those who suffered from war and poverty. His health declined under the burden of work. He died in Andria on 2 January 1952, the day before his fifty-first birthday, after about twelve years as ordinary of the see.

After his death a reputation for holiness persisted in the Diocese of Andria and among the Trinitarians. A cause for beatification was introduced, and in Catholic usage he is a Servant of God. He has not been beatified or canonized, has no universally assigned feast day, and is not recorded as patron of particular places or causes in an official sense. As a professed religious and a Latin-rite bishop he lived in clerical celibacy and was never married. He did not hold the office of pope or of patriarch.

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