HOME

St. Gaspar Bertoni, Founder of the Stigmatine Congregation [1777 – †1853]

This website is dedicated to the Founder of the Stigmatine Congregation, St. Gaspar Bertoni. The reason for publishing this website is to share throughout the world his wonderful hope-filled charism and virtues, which have inspired so many. The hope is that Fr. Bertoni’s ideal might enrich those open to the healing message of Jesus Christ.

St. Gaspar Bertoni was a Catholic priest who lived in Verona, Italy, during one of the most disturbed periods of the region’s history (1777 – 1853). For a while, the city was the scene of the war between Austria and the France of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the destruction of the city, with its many dead and injured people and the loss of moral values, Fr. Bertoni sought to meet these terrible problems with the response suggested to him from his vivid faith in the suffering and risen Christ and ardent apostolic missionary charity and concern for others.

In his spirit of abandonment to God, and availability to the Church, he was guided by the Holy Spirit to found the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata (Stigmatines) with the goal of “Apostolic Missionaries for the Assistance of Bishops.” One other important aspect of Fr. Bertoni’s service to the universal  Church was his spiritual direction of Mother Leopoldina Naudet in the foundation of her Community of the Sisters of the Holy Family.

This website is part of an effort to make St. Gaspar Bertoni better known. His message appeals to believers in all walks of life: to the young in their vocational discernment – to the mature for encouragement in their life’s choices, and to the elderly in their meeting the challenges of old age. St. Gaspar’s life was based on the offertory of the Eucharist, its Consecration and Holy Communion – that will last forever – comforted by a devotion to the Five Wounds [the Sacred Stigmata] of the Lord, and to the Holy Spouses, Mary and Joseph.

signature