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Archdiocese of Turin

A Catholic Church district based in Turin, founded in the 4th century and a metropolitan see since 1515, heading ten dioceses in Piedmont and the Aosta Valley.

Image from an ANSA publication
From an ANSA publication, 19 February 2022

The Archdiocese of Turin is the Catholic Church district based in Turin, comprising 137 municipalities of the Metropolitan City of Turin, 15 in the province of Cuneo and 6 in that of Asti: nearly half of Piedmont's population lives within its territory.[1] It has been a metropolitan see since 21 May 1515 and heads an ecclesiastical province of ten suffragan dioceses: Acqui, Alba, Aosta, Asti, Cuneo-Fossano, Ivrea, Mondovì, Pinerolo, Saluzzo and Susa.[2] According to the Catholic Yearbook it counts over two million inhabitants (2,025,553) and 346 parishes.[2] Its cathedral is the Cathedral of St John the Baptist.

Origins and the Middle Ages

Turin's tradition venerates as proto-martyrs the saints Octavius, Adventor and Solutor, who lived in the 3rd century. The first bishop was almost certainly St Maximus, linked by tradition to the monastic community founded by St Eusebius in Vercelli; the diocese was born in the second half of the 4th century, splitting off from that of Vercelli[1]. In the 13th century the mendicant orders arrived in the city — Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians. Between 1491 and 1492 three medieval churches were demolished to make way for the new cathedral, in use from 1498 and solemnly dedicated on 21 September 1505[1].

Metropolitan see and Savoy capital

In 1515 Pope Leo X raised Turin to a metropolitan archdiocese, assigning it Mondovì and Ivrea as suffragans[1]. Its ties to the ruling dynasty grew closer once the court settled in the city: in 1578 Duke Emanuele Filiberto had the Shroud moved from Chambéry to Turin, where it has been kept in the cathedral ever since. In the 18th century the diocesan territory was reduced with the creation of the dioceses of Pinerolo (1748) and Susa (1772)[1].

The 19th century of the "social saints"

The diocese remembers the 19th century as the age of "social holiness". In a city growing with industry arose the works of Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo (1786-1842), founder of the Piccola Casa della Divina Provvidenza, and of Giovanni Bosco (1815-1888), from whom came the Salesian Society and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians; alongside them worked St Giuseppe Cafasso. Among the beatified figures of the same period are Federico Albert, Clemente Marchisio, Giovanni Maria Boccardo and Francesco Faà di Bruno[1].

The 20th century: the working-class city and the Council

In the early 20th century Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925) lived in Turin. Archbishop Maurilio Fossati, in office from 1930 to 1965, had numerous churches built in the new districts to welcome the waves of migrants who brought the city past a million inhabitants[1].

His successor Michele Pellegrino, born in 1903 in Roata Chiusani, in the Cuneo area, was a professor of ancient Christian literature at the University of Turin and had never been a parish priest. Paul VI called him to lead the diocese in 1965 and made him a cardinal in 1967; between 1968 and 1976 he visited about four hundred parishes and supported the worker-priest movement[3]. To the priests working in the factories he would repeat: "I am a man of the university and find myself bishop of a working-class city. I ask you for advice"[4]. His pastoral letter Camminare insieme (Walking Together), dated 8 December 1971 and presented to the press on 16 January 1972, grew out of a long consultation of the diocesan councils and placed at its centre commitment to the poorest classes and to migrants[4]. He left office at the start of 1977, retired to the small parish of Vallo Torinese and died on 10 October 1986; he asked to be buried in his native village rather than in the cathedral[3].

Under the Carmelite Anastasio Alberto Ballestrero the diocese authorised the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud: the sample was taken in the cathedral's sacristy on 21 April 1988, the samples were analysed by laboratories at the University of Arizona, Oxford and the Politecnico of Zurich, and on 13 October 1988 the archbishop himself announced the result[5].

"The calibrated date range assigned to the Shroud's cloth is between 1260 and 1390 AD."

Anastasio Ballestrero, statement of 13 October 1988

Commenting on the outcome, Ballestrero added: "The Church has placed its trust in science"[5]. His successor Giovanni Saldarini convened, between 1994 and 1997, a diocesan synod devoted to the communication of the faith, the first in over a century; Severino Poletto promoted diocesan missions and established pastoral units grouping neighbouring parishes[1].

Turin and Susa today

On 19 February 2022 Pope Francis appointed as 95th metropolitan archbishop the theologian Roberto Repole, born in Turin on 29 January 1967 and president of the Italian Theological Association from 2011 to 2019[6]. A canon, he had directed the Turin section of the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy. The announcement was made simultaneously in the Vatican and at the Sanctuary of the Consolata; his predecessor Cesare Nosiglia remained as apostolic administrator until the ordination and then settled in the parish of Madonna Addolorata al Pilonetto[7]. Repole was ordained bishop on 7 May 2022[6]. With the same appointment he also became bishop of Susa: the two dioceses remain distinct but are united in persona episcopi, that is, under a single bishop[8].

On 7 December 2024 Francis made him a cardinal, with the title of Gesù Divin Maestro alla Pineta Sacchetti[6]. More than 250 faithful were present in St Peter's Basilica, including seminarians, parishioners from Druento and Givoletto and Curia staff, along with mayor Stefano Lo Russo and regional president Alberto Cirio[9]. In March 2026 Repole was elected president of the Episcopal Conference of Piedmont and Aosta Valley, and in August of the same year he joined the Holy See's Council for the Economy[8]. After his elevation was announced, Repole spoke of a clergy with a "rather high" average age and of a phase of change for the two dioceses[10]:

"For these dioceses this is a time of necessary restructuring, in the awareness that this is possible while remaining faithful to what the Church is, but changing what we may have received by tradition in recent decades yet need not be kept forever"

Roberto Repole, interview with Vatican News, October 2024

Pages linking here

Sources

  1. Arcidiocesi di Torino
  2. Annuario Cattolico
  3. Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
  4. La Voce e il Tempo — 25 November 2021
  5. La Voce e il Tempo — 19 October 2018
  6. Sala Stampa della Santa Sede
  7. ANSA — 19 February 2022
  8. Diocesi di Susa
  9. La Voce e il Tempo — 7 December 2024
  10. Vatican News — 8 October 2024

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