Vincent Pallotti

Vincent Pallotti was born in Rome on 21 April 1795, the son of Pietro Paolo Pallotti, a grocer, and Maria Maddalena De Rossi. He was one of ten children in a devout family of modest means; several of his siblings died in childhood. Frail in health from youth, he nonetheless pursued studies in Rome, attending the Roman College, and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Rome on 16 May 1818. He obtained doctorates in philosophy and theology and taught theology for a period. From the beginning of his priesthood he was sought as a confessor and spiritual director, notably among students and missionary candidates at the Urban College of Propaganda Fide.

Pallotti’s ministry in Rome combined the care of souls with practical works of charity. He established night schools so that artisans and laborers could receive instruction, and he founded houses of charity, including a refuge for girls and young women at risk. During the cholera epidemic of 1837 he personally assisted the sick. He was known for extreme personal poverty, frequently giving away his own food and clothing. A distinctive initiative was his promotion of an octave of prayer around the feast of the Epiphany, in which the liturgies of various Eastern and Western rites were celebrated in Rome as a plea for the unity of Christians and the evangelization of the world.

On 9 January 1835 he inaugurated the Union of Catholic Apostolate, whose purpose was to gather clergy, religious, and laity in a single apostolic effort under the patronage of Mary, Queen of Apostles, with the motto “Caritas Christi urget nos.” From this union grew the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (commonly called the Pallottines) and a congregation of sisters. Pallotti taught that every baptized person is called to be an apostle according to his or her state of life—an idea that anticipated later magisterial teaching on the lay apostolate. The novelty of a mixed association of this kind, and disputes over its canonical form, brought him misunderstanding and opposition; he himself remained a secular priest of the Roman diocese and never became a religious in the strict canonical sense.

He died in Rome on 22 January 1850 after a short illness, and popular veneration began at once. Pope Pius XII beatified him on 22 January 1950, the hundredth anniversary of his death, and Pope John XXIII canonized him on 20 January 1963. His relics rest in the church of San Salvatore in Onda in Rome, entrusted to his society. The Second Vatican Council’s teaching on the apostolate of all the baptized has often been read as a confirmation of the intuition that shaped his life and foundations. His feast is observed on 22 January.