At Lecce in Apulia, Blessed Philip Smaldone, priest, who with fervent zeal devoted himself to the care of the needy deaf and blind and to their human and Christian education, and founded the Congregation of the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Hearts.
Lifespan: 1848–1923
Beatified: 12 May 1996 by Pope John Paul II
Canonized: 15 October 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI, Rome
Memoria liturgica: 4 June
“As one prostrates oneself before the Most Blessed Sacrament, so one must kneel before a deaf-mute.”
— Philip Smaldone
The arc of Philip Smaldone’s life, stretching from 1848 to 1923, was marked by decades particularly dense with tensions and conflicts across the various fields and sectors of Italian society — especially in his homeland — and of the Church itself.
He was born in Naples on 27 July 1848, the year of the famous Neapolitan uprisings. When he was twelve years old, the Bourbon monarchy, to which his family was strongly attached, met its political downfall; and the Church, with Garibaldi’s conquest, passed through dramatic moments with the exile of its Cardinal Archbishop, Sisto Riario Sforza.
These were certainly not times favorable or promising for the future, especially for the young, who were experiencing the great turmoil of the new socio-political-religious order. And yet it was precisely in that phase of institutional and social crisis that Philip made the irrevocable decision to ascend to the priesthood and to bind himself forever to the service of the Church, which he saw besieged and persecuted.
While still a student of philosophy and theology, he already wished to impart a mark of charitable service to his ecclesiastical life, dedicating himself to the assistance of a category of marginalized persons who were particularly numerous and all too abandoned in that era in Naples: the deaf.
In this intense benevolent activity he applied himself and distinguished himself far more than in his studies, so that he achieved little success in certain examinations required for reception of Minor Orders. This led to his transfer from the Archdiocese of Naples to that of Rossano Calabro, whose Archbishop, Mgr. Pietro Cilento, received him generously in consideration of his goodness and excellent ecclesiastical spirit.
Notwithstanding the canonical change of diocese — which, moreover, lasted only a few years, since in 1876 he was re-incardinated in Naples — with his new Archbishop’s permission he remained in Naples, where he continued his ecclesiastical studies under the guidance of one of the Masters of the celebrated Almo Collegio dei Teologi, while persisting with undiminished dedication in his work of assistance to the deaf. Mgr. Pietro Cilento, who held him in high esteem, wished to ordain him personally in Naples as subdeacon on 31 July 1870. On 27 March 1871 he was ordained deacon; and finally, on 23 September 1871, with a dispensation of some months from the canonical age of twenty-four required, he was ordained priest in Naples, to the unspeakable joy of his good and gentle soul.
Immediately upon ordination he began a fervent priestly ministry: as an assiduous catechist in the evening chapels he had frequented profitably since childhood; as a zealous collaborator in various parishes, especially that of Santa Caterina in Foro Magno; and as an assiduous and sought-after visitor of the sick in clinics, hospitals, and private homes. His charity reached the summit of generosity and heroism during a severe pestilence in Naples, by which he himself was struck and brought to the point of death, and from which he was healed through Our Lady of Pompei, who became his cherished devotion for the rest of his life.
But the privileged pastoral care of Father Smaldone was for the poor deaf, to whom he wished to devote his energies according to more suitable and fitting criteria than those he saw applied by those working in that educational sector. It caused him great pain that, for all the efforts and attempts made, the human and Christian education and formation of those unfortunate souls — equated in practice with pagans — remained for the most part frustrated.
At a certain point, perhaps to give a more direct and concrete expression to his priesthood, he thought of departing as a missionary to the foreign missions. But his confessor, who had guided him constantly since childhood, helped him understand that his “mission” lay among the deaf-mutes of Naples. From that time on he threw himself wholly into this apostolate. He left his family home and went to live permanently with a group of priests and laymen who intended to establish a Congregation of Salesian Priests — a project that nonetheless never came to fruition. Over time he acquired great pedagogical expertise in the field and gradually began to plan the realization, if such should be the Lord’s will, of a stable and suitable institution for the care, instruction, and human and Christian assistance of the deaf.
On 25 March 1885 he departed for Lecce to open, together with Father Lorenzo Apicella, an institute for the deaf. He brought with him certain “sisters” whom he had previously been forming, and thus laid the foundations of the Congregation of the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Hearts. Blessed and amply supported by the Bishops of Lecce, Mgr. Salvatore Luigi dei Conti di Zola and Mgr. Gennaro Trama, the congregation enjoyed rapid and solid growth.
The Lecce institute, with female and male sections, received ever larger premises to accommodate the growing number of those assisted — culminating in the acquisition of the celebrated former convent of the Scalze, which became the permanent seat and Mother House. The Bari institute followed in 1897.
Since the compassionate heart of Father Smaldone could not say no to the requests of so many poor families, he began at a certain point to receive, alongside the deaf girls, also blind girls and orphaned and abandoned children. Nor did he forget the human and moral needs of the young in general. He opened several houses with attached nursery schools, women’s workshops, and boarding houses for female students — among them one in Rome.
During his life the Work and the Congregation, despite the severe trials to which they were subject both from without and from within, experienced a significant expansion and consolidation. In Lecce he was obliged to endure a fierce struggle with a lay municipal administration hostile to the Church. Internally he suffered the bitterness of a delicate and complex episode of secession by the first Superior General, which provoked a lengthy Apostolic Visitation. It was especially in these two grave crises that the eminent virtues of Smaldone shone forth, and it became evident that his foundation was willed by God, who purifies his best children and the works born in his name through suffering.
For approximately four decades Father Smaldone was always at the forefront, never drawing back, lavishing himself in every way to support materially and educate morally his beloved deaf — toward whom he bore a father’s affection and care — and to form his Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Hearts in perfect religious life.
In Lecce, beyond his universal merit as director of the Institute and founder of the Salesian Sisters, he exercised an intense and manifold priestly ministry. He was a diligent and esteemed confessor of priests and seminarians, confessor and spiritual director of several religious communities, founder of the Eucharistic League of Priest Adorers and of the Lady Adorers, and Superior of the Congregation of Missionaries of Saint Francis de Sales for popular missions. He received the decoration of the Cross pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, was numbered among the canons of the cathedral of Lecce, and was honoured with a civic commendation from the civil authorities.
He ended his days in Lecce, bearing with admired serenity a prolonged diabetic illness complicated by cardiovascular disorders and general sclerosis. He passed away holily at nine o’clock in the evening of 4 June 1923, having received all the last rites and the blessing of Archbishop Trama, surrounded by several priests, his Sisters, and the deaf, at the age of seventy-five.
He was beatified by John Paul II on 12 May 1996.