Father Giuseppe Calvi, Servant of God, was born on May 1, 1901, in Cortemilia (Cuneo). His father’s name was Giovanni and his mother was Maddalena Listrino. He spent his childhood in Cortemilia, on the banks of the Bormida River, in a rural environment that was poor in material goods but rich in faith. Calm, gentle, and smiling, he showed his dedication to the things of God by actively participating in the activities of his parish church of San Pantaleo in Cortemilia.
He entered the seminary at the Mother House of the Oblates of St. Joseph in Asti on September 12, 1914. He had a calm, charitable, affable, and shy nature. He was animated by a deep spirit of prayer. He began his novitiate on November 1, 1917, in Asti, where he professed the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on October 1, 1919.
Afterward, he spent ten months in Rome, where he served as sacristan in the Church of San Lorenzo in Fonte on Via Urbana. From 1920 to 1926, back in Asti, he completed his philosophical and theological studies at the seminary of the Oblates of St. Joseph in the Mother House.
In October 1922, he expressed to the Superior General at the time, Father Alfredo Bianco, his desire to become a missionary. Among the Oblates, he stood out for his charity in community life, kindness, mercy, humility with his fellow brothers, and trust in his superiors—virtues deeply rooted in his confidence in God, as expressed in his writings.
He reached the milestones of perpetual profession on October 5, 1925, minor orders, diaconate on April 9, 1926, and was ordained a priest on May 29, 1926, in the Cathedral of Asti.
On September 14, 1926, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, he received the missionary’s crucifix along with other Oblates of St. Joseph at the Mother House in Asti, and on September 16, 1926, he departed from Genoa for Brazil.
He worked during his first year in Curitiba at the Abrigo de Menores, one of the first institutions in the state of Paraná that took in abandoned boys to provide them with education, instruction, and vocational training.
In the last months of 1927, the first signs of tuberculosis appeared, and in early 1928, he was admitted to the San Sebastian Sanatorium in Lapa, Paraná, where he seemed to improve. He lived this first experience of illness with full trust in God.
He resumed his missionary work from 1929 to 1933 in the parish of Nossa Senhora do Rosário in the port city of Paranaguá on the Atlantic, where he lived a fruitful priestly ministry, leading many groups, administering the sacrament of Reconciliation, and fostering fraternal life in the community.
From 1933 to 1935, he worked in the southern outskirts of Curitiba, at the Sacred Heart Parish in Água Verde, where he left a significant mark with his pastoral service. During the same period, he served as a counselor of the mission among the Oblate missionaries and was in charge of the religious brothers.
At the end of 1935, the symptoms of tuberculosis returned. From the beginning of 1936, he was once again hospitalized at the San Sebastian Sanatorium in Lapa, where he spent the rest of his short life.
His time in the sanatorium was not just a period of treatment—it became his mission: a missionary among the sick who suffered from the same illness, devoted to serving the Lord through the people who were hospitalized with him. He was officially appointed chaplain of the sanatorium, where he carried out a heroic and intense pastoral ministry.
Despite his illness, which at times left him extremely weak, he never stopped caring for the sick, acting as a brother, friend, and father, dedicating himself without reserve especially to the gravely ill and those in their final hours—even at night. He revived religious practices, founded the Apostolate of Suffering Association, for which he prepared and edited a monthly bulletin.
He encouraged devotion to the Sacred Heart and to the Virgin Mary, particularly under the title Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Many conversions among the sick followed as a result of his efforts. He also taught catechism to the children of the sanatorium staff.
The pages of his notebooks—seven written in Brazil and six in Italy during his years of formation, which he always kept with him—reveal his commitment to preaching, his dedication to spiritual assistance, and his rich notes and reflections on spiritual life, the saints, and his own interior experience nourished by the Word of God and especially by devotion to the Virgin Mary.
The final year of his life in the sanatorium was marked by the painful news of the death of his parents in Italy and the progressive suffering of his illness, which he always faced with generosity and clarity.
He died at the San Sebastian Sanatorium in Lapa, Paraná, Brazil, at 2:30 p.m. on September 26, 1943, at the age of 42. The youngest patients at the sanatorium were the first to spread his reputation for holiness, saying when they shared the news of his passing that “Father Giuseppe the saint has died.”
On July 20, 2007, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints granted the nihil obstat (no objection) for the opening of the beatification cause of the Servant of God. The diocesan phase of the process in the Archdiocese of Curitiba began on November 9, 2007, and concluded in 2023. The cause for the beatification of Father Giuseppe Calvi is currently under review by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in Rome.