FRANCESCO PISETTA (priest)
BORN: Trento - 25.2.1903
FINAL PROFESSION: Rome - 4.12.1927
ORDAINED: Rome - 7.4.1928
DIED: Verona - 6.7.1998
AGE: 95
The life of Fr. Pisetta covered nearly a Century of the history of the Congregation. Born in 1903, he can be linked with great Confreres who marked our past: Fr. Albino Sella, Fr. Goffredo Friedmann, Fr. Riccardo Zambiasi. He entered the Apostolic School in 1914 and completed his theological studies in Rome at Propaganda Fide, where he started cultivating the love for the mission. Consecrated a priest in 1928, he lived in many communities, carrying out various services at the help of the Church and of the Congregation. He became a formator of the aspirants in Trento, in Parma he was in charge of the youth at the boarding school, at Affi (Verona) he served as novice master, provincial secretary and councillor.
Since 1952 he lived in the parish of S. Croce in Milan. His silent holiness was noticeable and for forty years the people of the parish and of the city could benefit of his wisdom. He was a man of spiritual counselling, always ready to hear confessions, deeply involved in his daily spiritual practice.
He was similar to his brother Louis (founder of the ‘Servas de Jesus Sacerdotes’ - “Handmaids of Christ the Priest” - in Brazil), and formed the backbone of a new generation of Stigmatines, giving sap and life to new plants. During the last years of his life, when we were thinking of him or talking with him, we did not think of death. He seemed eternal, even when his shaking hands were no longer.
