DI FRANCIA, ANNIBALE MARIA. - Canon of Messina, born there on 5 July 1851 and died there on 1 June 1927. Of noble family and ardent intellect, having become a priest in 1878, he immediately devoted himself to works of social charity, and through opposition and struggles succeeded in founding the Antonian orphanages, for boys and girls. In contact with the saints of his time (d. Bosco, p. Casoria, p. Gusmano, Rosa Gattorno), he imitated their examples and followed their advice, especially in the foundation (toward which he felt a mysterious impulse) of the Rogationists of the Heart of Jesus, priests devoted to works of charity and destined to fulfill the desires of Jesus expressed in the words: rogate ergo Dominum messis, ut mittat operarios in messem suam. He also received extraordinary assistance from the seer of La Salette, Melania Calvat, in founding the Daughters of Divine Zeal, with the same aims as the Rogationists. All D. F.’s institutions are today flourishing and are spreading also beyond Italy.
A man of evangelical simplicity, wholly “seraphic in ardor” (he had many contacts with souls of lofty Franciscan spirituality), he spent his life in tireless, sleepless labor on behalf of abandoned children. At his death he was hailed by the grateful people as an “apostle of charity.” The process of beatification has begun in the archiepiscopal curia of Messina. He
left many little songs, which became popular, in which he was able to convey the warmth of his apostolic soul.