GUALA, LUIGI MARIA FORTUNATO. – Priest
of Turin, moralist, b. in Turin on 14 Oct. 1775 (S. Agostino) to the lawyer Giovanni Giuseppe and Scolastica Gastinelli, d. there on 6 Dec. 1848. He was introduced to apostolic works by the Servant of God Pio Brunone Lanteri, with whom he became a faithful collaborator. Ordained priest on 16 Feb. 1799, he was a collegiate theologian at the University, rector of the Congregation of Artists, established in the church of S. Francesco (1808), and director of one of the “Conferences on Morals” (16 Dec. 1814). The chief merit of this humble priest, of whom few biographical details remain, is that he gave a new direction to the formation of the subalpine clergy both by founding, in 1817, the Ecclesiastical Boarding School (v.), and by the practice of spiritual exercises according to the Ignatian method (held mainly, even for laypeople, in the sanctuary of S. Ignazio at Lanzo) and the dissemination of the ascetical works of St. Alphonsus and his moral doctrine.
A man of learning and prudence, he was the advisor to the most prominent figures in the religious and political world of subalpine Italy at the time, and the beneficent friend of the poor, the sick, prisoners, and artisans. His most illustrious disciples were St. Joseph Cafasso and St. John Bosco.