Litany of Saints
Picture: We El · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Gaetano Catanoso

Italian parish priest (1879-1963)

SaintResearchedItalyPost-1588

Feast: 4 April (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)

Born
14 February 1879
verified
Died
1963
verified
Beatified
4 May 1997
by John Paul II
Canonised
23 October 2005
by Benedict XVI

Who they were

Gaetano Catanoso was born at Chorio di San Lorenzo, near Reggio Calabria, on 14 February 1879 to devout farming parents. He entered the seminary at ten and was ordained on 20 September 1902.

In 1904 he became parish priest of Pentidattilo, a village of Aspromonte marked by poverty, illiteracy and neglect, and later founded in Reggio Calabria the Veronican Sisters of the Holy Face to serve the poor and the outcast. His archbishop called him 'a most devout priest who taught all his long life how to love and serve the Lord'.

The miracles

The Dicastery's biography does not describe the miracles approved in the cause.

Why that counted as sanctity

A mountain parish priest who loved the forgotten poor of Calabria.

Sources

Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.

All saints · About this site · Report a mistake on this page