Luigi Variara
| Born | 15 January 1875, Viarigi, Italy |
|---|---|
| Died | 1 February 1923, Cúcuta, Colombia |
| State of life | Priest, professed Salesian, missionary, and founder |
| Religious institute or church | Society of Saint Francis de Sales (S.D.B.) |
| Ecclesial status | Blessed; beatified on 14 April 2002 |
| Recognition | Beatified 14 April 2002 by Pope John Paul II |
Luigi Variara was an Italian Salesian priest and missionary in Colombia who served people affected by Hansen's disease and founded the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Overview
Luigi Variara (15 January 1875 – 1 February 1923) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Salesians of Don Bosco. He served for most of his life as part of the missions in Colombia where he worked with lepers and the children of outcast lepers. He was ordained as a priest while serving there and made it his mission to provide both relief and consolation.[1]
He established his own religious congregation - the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary - with the intention of allowing lepers and the children of lepers the chance to enter the religious life.
Pope John Paul II beatified Variara on 14 April 2002.
Life
Luigi Variara was born in 1875 in Asti to Pietro Variara and Livia Bussa.
Variara entered a Salesian Oratory in Turin at the age of 12 for studies. His father heard John Bosco preach in 1856 and took Variara to Valdocco to complete his studies; Variara met Bosco for a brief period in 1887 before Bosco died in 1888 and the encounter with Bosco left a deep imprint upon Variara.[2] When the two met, Bosco gazed into Variara which the latter took as a confirmation of his future Salesian vocation, considering Bosco's gaze as the approval for such a decision.[3] After Variara finished high school he asked permission to become a Salesian.
Variara joined the Salesians of Don Bosco on 17 August 1891 and commenced his period of novitiate. Variara underwent philosophical studies at Valsalice where he met the Andrew Beltrami who died not long after; Variara was inspired with Beltrami's docile attitude to his suffering.[2] He made his solemn profession of his religious vows in the hands of Bosco's successor Michael Rua.[4] In 1894 the priest Michele Unia came to look for a cleric to take with him to Colombia to assist at the Salesian missions for the lepers. Out of the 188 candidates Unia was most impressed with Variara and the two embarked and arrived in Colombia in Agua de Dios on 6 August 1894.[2] When Unia chose him out of all others Variara said of it: "I said 'yes', and it seemed to me a dream".[4]
He carried out his apostolate in the leper colonies of Agua de Dios in the mission that numbered 2000 people of whom 800 were lepers that he would tend to. Variara was ordained to the priesthood in 1898 in Colombia. Variara also served for a period of time as the spiritual director to the Sodality of the Children of Mary.[1] He often served in the confessional booth for around four to five hours.
Unia died in 1895 and allowed for Variara to work with his fellow Salesian Father Crippa. In 1905 he established the Father Michele Unia Kindergarten in honor of Unia whom Variara had a great admiration for.[2]
Seeing that the lepers and - indeed the children of lepers - could not enter the religious life he decided at the suggestion of Rua to establish a religious congregation to allow them to do so. He also decided to do this with the permission of the Archbishop of Bogotá Bernardo Herrera Restrepo and formal approval for the establishment allowed for it to be erected as such on 7 May 1905. It received diocesan approval from Restrepo's successor Isamel Perdomo Borrero on 2 October 1930 and the papal decree of praise from Pope Pius XII in 1952; Pope Paul VI granted formal pontifical approval on 6 April 1964.
In 1919 he was diagnosed to have contracted the disease that he had worked alongside for so long; this diagnosis proved to be quite inaccurate. In 1921 he agreed to go to Tariba in Venezuela but arrived in poor health. The doctors there that attended to him requested he go back to Colombia to Cucuta. He died in 1923 in Cucuta; his remains were transferred to Agua de Dios in 1932 where he now rests.[4]
Origins and formation
Luigi Variara was born at Viarigi on 15 January 1875 and entered the Salesian school at Turin-Valdocco, where he met the aging John Bosco. He joined the novitiate, made religious profession, and received missionary formation within the Salesian Society. Father Michele Unia selected him in 1894 for Agua de Dios, Colombia, a settlement where people diagnosed with Hansen's disease lived under severe social and legal isolation. This chronology keeps civil identity, Baptism, family formation, education, migration, and later ecclesial recognition in their proper order. A title conferred after death is not projected backward as though childhood or ordinary formation made the eventual judgment inevitable; the local Church and the people who shared that history retain their own agency.
Vocation and ministry
Variara was ordained in 1898 and served through sacraments, music, youth work, education, and practical accompaniment. With young women of Agua de Dios he founded the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts in 1905, an institute that admitted candidates affected by Hansen's disease who were excluded elsewhere. Misunderstanding and reassignment separated him from the foundation, yet correspondence and faithful obedience continued until his death at Cúcuta. The state of life stated here is therefore exact: Holy Orders, religious profession, marriage, lay consecration, or lay discipleship are related but not interchangeable realities. Membership in an institute is asserted only where the competent source documents it, and an apostolate or spiritual friendship never creates an invented postnominal.
Christian witness and legacy
Spirituality
Salesian joy, the Eucharist, the Sacred Hearts, Mary Help of Christians, confidence under opposition, and pastoral closeness shaped his ministry. Respectful language names Hansen's disease without using people as symbols of impurity or passive suffering. Holiness is not infection, segregation, or lack of treatment; it is charity practiced with medical responsibility, friendship, vocational equality, and resistance to stigma. The accessible center of this witness is sacramental faith expressed through prayer, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude, and fidelity to a concrete vocation. Reported extraordinary favors, visions, healings, or remembered sayings remain subject to historical and ecclesial discernment; none adds to revelation or replaces the Gospel, the sacraments, medical care, or responsible moral judgment.
Work and historical significance
The new congregation made an important claim about equal baptismal and religious vocation by receiving women whom contemporary institutions rejected because of illness or family exposure. Its members and the residents of Agua de Dios were agents of worship, education, arts, nursing, and community life. Variara's founder role is real, but it does not eclipse the women who embodied and governed the institute after his removal. Historical significance belongs not only to a named candidate but also to coworkers, families, patients, students, parishioners, local clergy, religious communities, and the people served. Institutions inspired by the life remain accountable to canon law, professional standards, safeguarding, and the dignity and freedom of every person; later growth is evidence of influence, not automatic proof of sanctity.
Cause and veneration
Recognition and present status
Pope John Paul II beatified Luigi Variara in Saint Peter's Square on 14 April 2002 after approval of a miracle attributed to his intercession. The Dicastery identifies him as a Blessed Salesian priest and records 1 February as his memory. No canonization has occurred, so Saint would overstate the current judgment. The controlling evidence is the dated act of the pope, Dicastery, competent diocese, eparchy, patriarchal authority, or authorized postulation cited below. Canonical stages answer different questions and cannot be collapsed: opening or validating an inquiry, recognizing heroic virtue or martyrdom, beatification, and canonization each has its own juridical effect and evidentiary threshold.[5][6]
Liturgical and devotional scope
Beatification authorizes a limited public liturgical cult of Blessed Luigi Variara in the Salesian Family, his founded institute, and other approved Colombian or local calendars. His proper memory is 1 February, but he has no memorial in the universal General Roman Calendar. S.D.B. denotes his actual Salesian profession rather than membership in every community inspired by Don Bosco. Anniversary Masses, pilgrimages, portraits, named institutions, private prayers, and reports of favors must be described according to that exact rank. They do not by themselves create a feast, authenticate a miracle, establish a relic cult, or authorize liturgical texts; the competent calendar and ecclesiastical authority govern every public observance.[7]
Legacy
At present the congregation that Variara established operates across several continents such as Europe and Africa and spread at a rapid pace across South America where Variara operated. It now operates in states such as Cameroon and Spain.
As of 2005 there have been around 382 religious of the congregation operating in a total of 71 houses.
Beatification
The beatification process was initiated on two fronts in both Bogotá and in Girardot and commenced in a diocesan process that spanned from 10 August 1959 until 12 September 1959 - the beginning of the cause allowed for Variara to be granted the posthumous title Servant of God. The process was declared valid on 21 April 1989 and allowed for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to initiate their own line of investigation in what was known as the so-called "Roman Phase" of the proceedings.
The postulation later compiled the Positio extolling the works and the virtues of the late Salesian priest and submitted it to Rome in 1989 for further investigation. Pope John Paul II approved these findings and recognized that the late priest had in fact lived a model Christian life of heroic virtue; because of this the pope conferred upon Variara the title of Venerable on 2 April 1993.
The pope also approved a miracle attributed to his intercession and celebrated his beatification on 14 April 2002.
The current postulator of the cause is the Salesian Father Pierluigi Cameroni.
References
- Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 "Blessed Luigi Variara". Saints SQPN. 27 April 2015. Retrieved 14 February 2016.
- Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Back to citation occurrence 2.2 Back to citation occurrence 2.3 "Blessed Luigi Variara (1875-1923)". Salesians of Don Bosco (UK). Retrieved 14 February 2016.
- Back to citation "Luigi Variara". Holy See. 2002. Retrieved 14 February 2016.
- Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 Back to citation occurrence 4.2 "Blessed Luigi Variara". Santi e Beati. Retrieved 14 February 2016.
- Back to citation Dicastery profile of Blessed Luigi Variara — The competent dicastery records Variara's Salesian formation, Colombian mission, priesthood, work at Agua de Dios, foundation, death, beatification, and memory.
- Back to citation John Paul II beatification homily — The papal homily belongs to the rite that beatified Luigi Variara and presents his service among people with Hansen's disease and the congregation he founded.
- Back to citation Dicastery guidance on remembering holiness — The Dicastery's current guidance distinguishes Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God and explains the corresponding rules for public cult, images, relics, calendars, and cause promotion.