At Spoleto in Italy, Blessed Peter Bonilli, priest, founder of the Institute of the Sisters of the Holy Family for the assistance and education of poor girls and orphaned children.
Lifespan: 1841–1935
Beatified: 24 April 1988 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 5 January
“To be family, to give family, to build family”
Peter Bonilli was born in San Lorenzo di Trevi on 15 March 1841, into a family poor in worldly goods but rich in faith. His encounter with a holy priest, Father Ludovico Pieri, in Trevi, where he had gone to study, would change his life from a very early age. It was Father Pieri who kindled in his heart a tender devotion to the Holy Family and who guided him toward the priestly vocation.
When he was ordained in 1863, Father Peter chose to serve as a country parish priest in Cannaiola di Trevi, little imagining that in so small and poor a village he would become “an angel of charity,” and that many women, inspired by his example, would go on to become the sisters of his Institute, now spread throughout the world.
He served as parish priest of Cannaiola di Trevi for thirty-four years. In that village he founded, on 13 May 1888, the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Spoleto — an institute dedicated to the care of the poor, orphans, the deaf-mute, the blind, and the abandoned.