Our Founder
St. Luigi Orione
1872–1940. A priest of the poor, a disciple of Don Bosco, and the man who said that only charity would save the world — and then spent his life proving it.
The life
Luigi Orione was born at Pontecurone, in the north of Italy, on 23 June 1872, into a family of modest means — his father paved roads. As a boy he entered the Oratory of Valdocco in Turin, where he became a disciple of St. John Bosco, whose confidence in the young marked him for life.
In 1893, at Tortona, he began the Little Work of Divine Providence. He was twenty-one. It grew into a family of several branches: the Sons of Divine Providence, the Little Missionary Sisters of Charity, the Hermits of Divine Providence, the Blind Sacramentine Sisters and the Don Orione Lay Movement.
He is remembered above all for the “Little Cottolengos”: houses for the abandoned, which he wanted planted at the edges of great cities as beacons of faith and humanity. Where others saw people who could not be helped, he saw guests to be received.
Only Charity will save the world.
St. Luigi OrioneHis rule of life
The motto he gave to the Little Work was taken from St. Paul: Instaurare omnia in Christo — to restore all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10). Everything else follows from it. His own rule of life was short enough to be remembered by anyone: “Do good always, to all; evil to none.”
He was tireless. He walked into earthquake ruins at Messina and Avezzano and came out carrying orphans. He founded houses with no money and trusted Divine Providence to pay for them — which is why the Congregation still bears her name.
Death and canonisation
Worn out by work and heart disease, he was sent to San Remo to rest, and died there on 12 March 1940. His last words were: “Gesù, Gesù, Gesù.” — Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
He was beatified on 26 October 1980 and canonised by St. John Paul II on 16 May 2004. His body rests incorrupt at Tortona.
In a niche of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome stands his statue, the work of the sculptor Alessandro Romano. He holds a Bible, and on it are carved the words that summed him up: ONLY CHARITY WILL SAVE THE WORLD.
His sons in Kenya
Fifty-six years after his death, the first Orionine missionary arrived in Kenya. What he brought was not a programme but a way of looking at people. It is the same look that today finds a child with cerebral palsy in a hut outside Kaburugi, a Maasai woman walking hours for water, a young man mining sand on a riverbed near Nyadorera.
For the story of the worldwide Congregation, visit donorione.org. For how the charism becomes concrete here, read Our Charism.