VILLASECA, GIUSEPPE MARIA. - Priest, founder of the Missionaries of St. Joseph of Mexico, b. at Igualda (diocese of Barcelona) on 19 Jan. 1831, d. at Tacubaya (Mexico) on 4 Apr. 1910.
Having entered the seminary in Barcelona, he heard Fr. Armengol, a Pauline missionary passing through, plead the cause of the Mexican missions, and immediately offered himself. Leaving Spain on 19 March 1853, he arrived at Vera Cruz on 2 Apr. and at once entered the Congregation of St. Vincent de' Paul, where, after completing his studies, he was ordained priest in 1856. After various activities (including the establishment of a printing press which soon circulated more than 800,000 copies of apologetic pamphlets), he founded a Seminary at Monterrey in 1860 and the clerical College of St. Joseph in Mexico City in 1872, where he was an able rector and educator. In the same year he carried out the idea of a double male and female Congregation which, besides providing priests for vacant parishes, would also concern itself especially with unbelieving indigenous peoples. The two works, sustained by his enthusiasm and virtues, soon flourished and spread; from 1884 his missionaries were able to work among pagans in the states of Tarahumara,
Sonora, Chiapas, Tabasco, Neyarit. In 1903 he obtained definitive approval for the two Institutions, of which he was the soul and driving force until his death.