GUANELLA, LUIGI. – Priest and founder of the Servants of Charity and the Daughters of St Mary of Providence, born at Fraciscio di Campodolcino (Sondrio) on 19 Dec. 1842 and died at Como on 24 Oct. 1915. He was ordained priest on 26 May 1866 at Como by Bp B. Frascolla, but had to wait for twenty years for the hour of Providence to arrive for his work, being meanwhile persecuted by the Masonic government at Savogno and later at Traona; misunderstood by his superiors, they confined him to the alpine peak of Olmo.
A friend of Fr D. Albertario (q.v.), he shared his ideals of apostolate and the fortunes of persecution. A man of open and far-sighted spirit, he was a pioneer of the most modern forms of apostolate. He opened day and evening schools for the civil and religious instruction of the people and institutions for the education of youth, gathering them also in oratories and guiding some souls to perfection. A son of the people, in 1878 he met Don Bosco (q.v.), whom he admired and almost alone blessed and encouraged at the beginning of his work. This was started at Pianello Lario (Como) with the small religious community of Fr C. Coppini (1827–81), volunteer of 1848 and secretary of G. Mazzini at Lugano. In 1886 that small community was transferred to Como, the seed of the two religious Congregations that were thus born: that of the Daughters of St Mary of Providence, definitively approved in 1917, with the development of about fifty houses in Europe and America, and that of the Servants of Charity, approved in 1928, which now has about forty houses for the shelter of the aged, the physically and mentally handicapped and for the education of youth.
The cause of beatification of G. has been introduced.