All About
Saint Luigi Scrosoppi
Saint Luigi Scrosoppi (4 August 1804 - 3 April 1884) was an Italian priest of the Roman Catholic Church who founded the Sisters of Providence of Saint Cajetan of Thiene. He was canonized in 2001. St. Luigi Scrosoppi was the last of three brothers born to Domenico Scrosoppi, a jeweler from Udine, and Antonia Lazzarini. His brother Carlo was ordained to the priesthood when Luigi was six and his other brother Giovanni Battista followed.
As a teenager, he felt a call to the priesthood and studied before he was ordained to the diaconate in 1826. He was ordained to the priesthood on 31 March 1827 and celebrated his first Mass with his brothers. He helped to manage a children's center that his brother Carlo ran and he was an assistant there in 1829. Later joined the Third Order of Franciscans. As head of the "union of the heart of Jesus Christ," he devoted himself to the construction of an orphanage and supported his brother Carlo, who also was a priest.
He gave himself tirelessly to fundraising and was soon running an organization that accommodated 100 boarders and 230-day pupils in a building which became known as the House of the Destitute. Scrosoppi established the Sisters of Providence of Saint Cajetan of Thiene and it was to receive the official approval of Pope Pius IX on 22 September 1871. Luigi joined the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in 1846 and was elected as its provost on 9 November 1856. On 7 March 1857, he opened a school and home for deaf-mute girls, only surviving for fifteen years. He died on 3 April 1884 after a long illness.