VENUTA, LUIGI. - Priest, b. at Nicosia on 3 Jan. 1823, d. at New Jersey (U.S.A.) in 1872.
Attached to the Palermo parish of S. Rocco, in Jan. 1848 he was among the first ecclesiastics to join the anti-Bourbon insurrection and took an ardent part in the conflicts of those days, exhorting and encouraging the fighters on the barricades. Elected deputy for his native constituency to the Sicilian Parliament, he was later sent to Nicosia, where he energetically succeeded in restoring public order. He asked, however, not to be diverted from his priestly ministry by political duties and wished to follow, as a military chaplain, the few Sicilian troops sent to the fields of Lombardy. The Bourbon restoration in the island also struck V., who was twice placed under arrest: released from prison and subjected to special surveillance in Dec. 1849, after the second detention he was left to choose between confinement and expatriation (March 1850).
He preferred to go into exile and went to the United States, where he spent the rest of his brief life, carrying out an admirable apostolate among European and especially Italian immigrants, for whom he created and directed numerous welfare institutions. The spread of Catholicism in North America owes much to him, for the self-sacrifice with which he placed himself at the disposal of the local bishops in New York, Brooklyn, Newark and finally New Jersey. Entirely absorbed by this new field of work, he gave up returning to Sicily in 1860, despite the appeals that had been addressed to him: he limited himself to a brief journey in 1871, a few months before his death.
Bibliography
Renzo U. Montini