Giustino Maria Russolillo

Giustino Russolillo was born on 18 January 1891 in Pianura di Napoli, Italy, to Luigi Russolillo and Giuseppina Simpatia. He received his First Holy Communion at the age of five and from then on declared that he wanted to be a priest. He entered the seminary of Pozzuoli when he was 10 and then the regional seminary of Napoli-Posillipo, run by the Jesuits, where he completed his studies in theology. He was ordained a priest on 20 September 1913 in the cathedral of Pozzuoli. During the sacred rite, as the assembly invoked the saints, he made a vow to found a religious congregation for vocations. After spending some time teaching catechism to children and young people on 30 April 1914, the Feast of Saint Catherine of Siena, he began to share a life with other young people in his father’s home, beginning a “vocations home”, an oasis of ...