DI FRANCIA, ANNI BALE MARIA. - Canon of Messina; born there on 1 July 1851, died there on 1 June 1927. Of noble family and keen intellect, he was ordained priest in 1878 and immediately devoted himself to works of social charity. Through opposition and struggle he succeeded in founding the Antonian orphanages, for boys and girls. In contact with the saints of his time (St. John Bosco, Fr. Ludovico da Casoria, Fr. Ignatius Gusmano, Rosa Gattorno) he imitated their example and followed their advice, especially in founding (towards which he felt a mysterious impulse) the *Rogazionisti del Cuore di Gesù*, priests dedicated to works of charity and destined to carry out the desires of Jesus expressed in: *rogate ergo Dominum messis, ut mittat operarios in messem suam*. He also received extraordinary help from Mélanie Calvat, the seer of La Salette, in founding the *Figlie del Divin Zelo*, with the same aims as the Rogazionisti. All the institutions founded by Fr. D. F. are today flourishing and spreading even beyond Italy.
A man of evangelical simplicity, wholly “seraphic in zeal” (he had many contacts with souls of high Franciscan spirituality), he spent his life in untiring, sleepless work for abandoned children. At his death he was hailed by the grateful people as “apostle of charity.” In the archiepiscopal curia of Messina the process for his beatification has been opened. He left many little songs which became popular, in which he succeeded in conveying the warmth of his apostolic soul.