19 Facts About Luigi Variara

Luigi Variara was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

Luigi Variara served for most of his life as part of the missions in Colombia where he worked with lepers and the children of outcast lepers.

Luigi Variara was ordained as a priest while serving there and made it his mission to provide both relief and consolation.

Luigi Variara 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.

Luigi Variara was born in 1875 in Asti to Pietro Variara and Livia Bussa.

Luigi Variara entered a Salesian Oratory in Turin at the age of 12 for studies.

Luigi Variara's 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.

Luigi Variara joined the Salesians of Don Bosco on 17 August 1891 and commenced his period of novitiate.

Luigi Variara underwent philosophical studies at Valsalice where he met the Andrew Beltrami who died not long after; Luigi Variara was inspired with Beltrami's docile attitude to his suffering.

Luigi Variara made his solemn profession of his religious vows in the hands of Bosco's successor Michael Rua.

Luigi Variara 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.

Luigi Variara was ordained to the priesthood in 1898 in Colombia.

Luigi Variara served for a period of time as the spiritual director to the Sodality of the Children of Mary.

Luigi Variara often served in the confessional booth for around four to five hours.

In 1905 he established the Father Michele Unia Kindergarten in honor of Unia whom Luigi Variara had a great admiration for.

Luigi Variara decided to do this with the permission of the Archbishop of Bogota Bernardo Herrera Restrepo and formal approval for the establishment allowed for it to be erected as such on 7 May 1905.

Luigi Variara died in 1923 in Cucuta; his remains were transferred to Agua de Dios in 1932 where he now rests.

At present the congregation that Luigi Variara established operates across several continents such as Europe and Africa and spread at a rapid pace across South America where Luigi Variara operated.

The beatification process was initiated on two fronts in both Bogota 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 Luigi Variara to be granted the posthumous title Servant of God.