Giuseppe Cafasso
Giuseppe Cafasso (Castelnuovo d'Asti, 15 January 1811 – Turin, 23 June 1860) was a priest from Turin, a saint, and one of the «social saints» of nineteenth-century Turin; in Turin he was known as «'l preive dla forca», the priest of the gallows, for his work assisting prisoners and those condemned to death.[1][2][3]
Formation
Born into a farming family from Castelnuovo, today Castelnuovo Don Bosco, he studied in Chieri and entered the seminary in 1830; he was ordained a priest on 21 September 1833.[1][2] His younger sister Marianna was the mother of Blessed Giuseppe Allamano.[3]
The Ecclesiastical Convitto
On 28 January 1834 he entered the Convitto ecclesiastico of San Francesco d'Assisi, where in 1844 the theologian Luigi Guala entrusted him with teaching; he later became rector, together with the church of San Francesco and the sanctuary of Sant'Ignazio sopra Lanzo.[2] For twenty-five years, from 1835 to 1860, he was the spiritual director of Don Bosco.[3]
The priest of the gallows
After hearing their confession, he accompanied to the scaffold 57 condemned prisoners according to the Holy See and MuseoTorino, or 68 according to the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani; among them General Gerolamo Ramorino, shot on 22 May 1849.[3][2][1] Executions were held at the Rondò della Forca, at the junction of Corso Valdocco and Corso Regina Margherita, until 1852; there, in 1961, a bronze monument to the saint by Virgilio Audagna was placed, commissioned by prisoners from all over Italy.[4]
Veneration
He died in Turin at the age of 49 and was buried in the general cemetery, later being moved to the Sanctuary of the Consolata.[2] Pius XI beatified him on 3 May 1925 and Pius XII canonized him on 22 June 1947, proclaiming him patron of Italian prisons on 9 April 1948.[3] Streets are named after him in Turin, Rome, Bra, Asti and Castelnuovo Don Bosco.[2]