Saint Gaspar del Bufalo

He was born in Rome on January 6, 1786, and was baptized Gaspare, Baldassarre, Melchiorre for the feast of the Epiphany. ¹³ His father, Antonio, was chief cook to the princely Altieri family; his mother was Annunziata Quartieroni. ¹ Vatican News describes the family as nobles come down in the world, and places the father's kitchen in Palazzo Altieri, facing the church of the Gesù. ³

He was a sickly child. His mother had him confirmed at a year and a half, and when an eye disease threatened to leave him blind, prayers were offered to Saint Francis Xavier. The 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia says he was cured in 1787, kept a lifelong devotion to Xavier, and later chose him as the special patron of his congregation. ¹

At twelve he entered the Collegio Romano. ¹ Vatican News says he put on the cassock in 1798 and began at once to look after the poor of Rome. ³ He taught catechism at San Marco, where, the encyclopedia says, his zeal earned him the name "The Little Apostle of Rome," and at nineteen he was put in charge of a new catechetical school at Santa Maria del Pianto. ¹ His pupils there, according to Vatican News, included the carters who brought hay in from the countryside to the Campo Vaccino, as the Roman Forum was then called. ³

He was ordained on July 31, 1808, and received a canonry at San Marco. With Gaetano Bonani he started a night oratory, he helped Francesco Albertini found the Archconfraternity of the Most Precious Blood, and he preached in the markets of the poorer districts. ¹

French troops held Rome. On the night of July 5 to 6, 1809, Pope Pius VII was arrested and carried off, and the new regime demanded an oath of loyalty from the clergy of the city. ³ In 1810 Gaspar was summoned before General Miollis to swear. ¹ Vatican News dates the summons to June 13. ³ Pius VII had forbidden the oath, and the encyclopedia says that "neither threats nor promises could induce him." ¹

His answer is the best-known thing he said. The encyclopedia prints it as "Non posso, non debbo, non voglio" and translates, "I cannot, I ought not; I will not." ¹ Vatican News has the same three refusals in a different order: "Non debbo, non posso, non voglio." ³

He was banished and then imprisoned. The encyclopedia speaks of "the foul dungeons of Imola and Rocca" and dates the whole ordeal 1810 to 1814. ¹ Vatican News lists the prisons of Piacenza, Bologna, Imola and finally Lugo, near Ravenna, four years in all, and says he came back to Rome only in 1814. ³ His congregation in the United States says the imprisonment "gave him a clear vision of establishing a congregation devoted to the Precious Blood of Jesus." ⁵

Back in Rome after Napoleon's fall, he meant to join the newly restored Jesuits. His spiritual director, Albertini, pointed him elsewhere, and in obedience he founded a congregation of secular priests to give missions and spread devotion to the Precious Blood. ¹ Pius VII wanted missions preached throughout the Papal States and chose Gaspar and a few other priests for the work. ²

Through Cardinal Cristaldi he obtained the pope's approval and a house, the former convent of San Felice at Giano. ¹ The congregation calls it an abandoned tenth-century abbey. ⁵ The encyclopedia's life of the saint says he took solemn possession of it on August 11, 1815; its article on the congregation, the congregation itself and Pope John Paul II all date the foundation to August 15. ¹²⁴⁵ John Paul II told the missionaries in 2001 that this was no accident: Gaspar chose the Assumption because "he saw in the glory of the Virgin the wondrous fruit of the sacrifice of her Son on the Cross." ⁴

The members took no vows. They were, in the encyclopedia's words, "held together by the bond of charity only" and by a promise not to leave without their superior's permission. ²

The work was the parish mission: days of preaching in a town, in church and in the street. ⁵ The encyclopedia says he often preached five times a day, and that at Sanseverino fifty priests were not enough to hear the confessions afterward. ¹ His contemporaries called him Il Santo, the saint, and the Apostle of Rome. A third title, hammer of the Carbonari in the encyclopedia and hammer of the sectarians in Vatican News, came from his preaching against the secret societies. ¹³

Then there were the brigands. In 1820 six missions were established in the Campagna for their conversion. ² The encyclopedia says they "came in crowds and laid their guns at his feet after he had preached to them in their mountain hiding-places." ¹ John Paul II put it this way: Gaspar "was asked by my Predecessor Pope Pius VII to go where no one else would go and to undertake missions which seemed unpromising," and "Casting his nets into deep and dangerous waters, he made an astonishing catch." ⁴

It made him enemies. Officials who profited from brigandage through bribes resented him, and they came close to getting Pope Leo XII to suspend him. ¹ Leo also objected to the name "Congregation of the Most Precious Blood" as a novelty. ² After meeting him in person the pope sent him away with the remark, "Del Bufalo is an angel." ¹ An attempt to remove him by promoting him to a diplomatic post in Brazil failed. Under Pius VIII, in 1830, he was deprived of his faculties for a short time and the congregation was threatened with extinction. The encyclopedia says he showed no resentment and forgave those responsible, and that he was soon restored. ¹

In 1834, working with Maria De Mattias, whose vocation he had drawn out when she was seventeen, he founded the women's branch, the Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood of Christ. ³

His strength began to fail in 1836. Already gravely ill, he hurried to Rome, where cholera was raging, to bring the sacraments to the sick, and he died there on December 28, 1837. ¹ Pope Pius X beatified him, on August 29, 1904, by the encyclopedia's date, and Pope Pius XII canonized him in 1954. ¹³

None of the sources read for this page names Saint Gaspar del Bufalo as patron of any group or cause, and the page does not supply one. ¹³⁵ The only patronage in his story runs the other way: he chose Saint Francis Xavier as patron of his congregation. ¹

Two dates are printed for him. Vatican News lists Saint Gaspar del Bufalo on October 21, and the Missionaries of the Precious Blood state that "His feast day is October 21." ³⁵ The Roman Martyrology enters him on December 28, the day of his death in Rome. ¹⁶ This page follows his own congregation and gives October 21 as the feast.

Three short refusals cost him four years. He was twenty-four and a canon of San Marco, and the encyclopedia says that threats and promises were both tried on him. ¹ The Martyrology remembers that even in prison he did not stop working to bring sinners back. ⁶

He wanted to be a Jesuit and was told to do something else. ¹ The congregation he founded instead was built for the places other preachers avoided, and its founder walked into bandit camps to tell armed men about the blood of Christ. ⁴⁵

He was also suspended, for a while, by the authority he had gone to prison for. The encyclopedia says he "showed no signs of resentment." ¹ That is hard to pray with, and the sources do not soften it.

John Paul II asked the missionaries to keep going "where others cannot or will not go." ⁴ Gaspar's last journey was of that kind: a sick man traveling toward a city with cholera in it. ¹