FORESTA, Alzibeto de. - French Jesuit, b. at Aix on 8 Jan. 1818, d. at Avignon on 2 May 1876. Of noble birth, he entered the novitiate at Avignon on 6 Oct. 1837 and held various offices in the Order: master of novices at Toulouse and Avignon (1849–1853), rector of the scholasticate at Fourvière in Lyons (1858–60), and of the novitiate at Clermont-Ferrand (1864–67). He was renowned for exceptional holiness.
As a young religious, he conceived a plan for a peaceful crusade aimed at the conversion of the northern regions and published an Appel aux missions boréales, but his name is chiefly associated with the foundation of the apostolic schools for the recruitment and training of future missionaries. The first was established at Avignon in 1865, and seven others before his death. The work was encouraged by Pius IX in briefs of 1867 and 1870 and was later imitated in many countries and by various religious families. Father F. set forth his guiding principles in a pamphlet: Oeuvre des écoles apostoliques fondées et dirigées par les pp. de la Compagnie de Jésus (Poitiers 1870). A distinctive feature of his plan was the freedom granted to pupils, at the end of their classical studies, to choose the missionary Order or Company of their preference. Though conditions had already changed, the alternative conception known as that of the minor seminaries later prevailed, whereby each Order prepares candidates for its own novitiate. According to a 1834 report, the apostolic schools directed by the Jesuits had produced up to that time 6,179 priests.