LANTERI, PIO BRUNONE. - Founder of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, b. at Cuneo on 12 May 1759, d. at Pinerolo on 5 Aug. 1830.
At the beginning of 1782 he went to Vienna with Fr. N. A. von Diessbach (v.), whose favorite disciple and active collaborator he was, in order to prepare there for the coming of Pius VI; in the same year, on 25 May, he was ordained a priest, and on 13 July he obtained his degree in theology at the University of Turin. He constantly refused any office or benefice in order to devote himself solely to the apostolate, which he carried out in the confessional (he was a much sought-after director of souls), in the preaching of the Spiritual Exercises according to the Ignatian method, in the societies: Aa (v.), Christian Friendship (v.), priestly (v.) and Catholic (v.), and finally in the Congregation of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary (v.), of which he was Superior General from 1817 and which he definitively re-established with pontifical approval in 1825. During the imprisonment of Pius VII at Savona he was among the most active organizers of the secret assistance given to the Pontiff, an activity that earned him confinement in his country house at Bardassano at the hands of the Napoleonic police (1811-14). After the Restoration he returned to Turin, where he sought to reactivate his former works of apostolate: from this period date his attempts to found the Ecclesiastical College (v.), which was later brought into being by the theologian L. Guala (v.). The contribution made by L. to the renewal of the formation of the subalpine clergy is of the first importance; in this regard he employed two highly effective means: the spiritual exercises according to the method of St. Ignatius and the dissemination of the ascetical and above all moral works of St. Alphonsus, of whom he was in his time, in Piedmont, the most ardent champion. His cause for beatification is in progress.
Works. - L. committed only a few writings to the press; the majority of his works is preserved in manuscript in the general archive of the Congregation of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary. Various of his apologetic writings, or writings concerning particular dogmatic or moral subjects (for example, the organic articles of 1802, the imperial catechism, the four Gallican articles, the conventicle of 1811, the so-called Concordat of Fontainebleau, the treatise De gratia of the Jansenist Salina, etc.), were circulated in manuscript copies in order to avoid police harassment. By temperament, influenced by the grave political and religious situation of Piedmont at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, L. constantly preferred anonymity. The following anonymous works belong to him: Réflexions sur la sainteté et doctrine du bienh. Liguori (Lyons-Paris 1823), translated into Italian, Reggio 1825 and several times reprinted with modifications; Réponse à la question si la doctrine du bienh. Liguori est toute sûre et approuvée par le St-Siège (Lyons 1824); Esercizi spirituali di s. Ignazio di Lojola col direttorio pel buon uso de' suddetti Esercizi ed alcune notizie intorno ad essi (Turin 1829); to which must be added the posthumous edition of the Medulla libelli Exercitiorum s. Ignatii, published as an appendix to the Direttorio degli Oblati di Maria Vergine, Turin 1854, pp. 189-218).
Bibliography
1870; T. Piatti, Un precursore dell'Azione Cattolica. Il servo di Dio P. B. L. apostolo di Torino, fondatore degli Oblati di M. Vergine, ibid. 1925 (2nd ed. ibid. 1934); [A. P. Frutaz], Positio n per introduzione causae et super virtutibus Pii Brunonis Lanteri (S. R. Congregatio, sec. Hist., 63), Vatican City 1945 (a rich collection of documents on L.).
A. Pietro Frutaz