About us

Luigi Giovanni Orione

"Physical and moral sufferings, fatigue, difficulties, incomprehension and obstacles of all kinds characterized his apostolic ministry." 

"Christ, the Church, souls are either loved and served on the cross and crucified or they are not loved and served totally."

Luigi Orione (1872-1940), an Italian priest, founded the Little Work of Divine Providence and the Little Missionary Sisters of Charity, becoming one of the most outstanding figures of charity of the first half of the 20th century.
A disciple of St. John Bosco, whom he knew personally, he dedicated himself to the education of poor children.

His policy of charity, first and foremost, enabled him to carry on a quiet but very fruitful ministry to apostate priests as well. In the early 1900’s, Modernism had seriously undermined clerical discipline, not only in the disaster areas, but throughout Italy. Don Orione took in defrocked priests at his institutions and rehabilitated quite a few of them. 

His spiritual work was misunderstood; people gossiped about how “poorly educated” his community must be, since so many of “them” were being laicized. But Don Orione took it all in stride. He knew the infinite worth of a single soul, and made it his practice to “go right to the edge” of the precipice in his search for a lost sheep.

Don Luigi Orione made no specious distinctions between the hierarchical structure of the Church and her pastoral ministry. His filial obedience to the Pope was the source of his moral strength and his inexhaustible energy. As he used to say to his community, “To love the Pope is to love Jesus Christ.”

In 1912 Don Orione requested an audience with the Pope so as to make his solemn profession as a member of the Sons of Divine Providence. While kneeling in the presence of the Holy Father, he remembered the canonical rule, that when a religious takes solemn vows (usually before the local bishop) two witnesses must be present. He hesitated, summoned his courage, and asked the Pope whether he might make an exception in this instance. Pope St. Pius X smiled and said, “Your guardian angel and mine will be the witnesses.”

The Holy Father guided and supported the Little Work of Divine Providence as the community rapidly expanded and diversified its apostolic labors. Don Orione made a very successful tour of Latin America, founding new houses, schools, and orphanages, especially in Argentina. It was not so easy introducing his community to Old-World Catholic cities like Genoa and Milan, where traditional religious orders and charities had long since staked out their territories. Nevertheless, in the spirit of St. Joseph Benedict Cottolengo, Don Orione took on the most difficult tasks, and his community has staffed mental hospitals and workshops for the mutilatini (boys who had lost limbs in wartime). 

From among the youths who surrounded him arose the nucleus of his congregation. Another of his congregations, the Little Missionary Sisters of Charity, came into being in 1915. Today the men religious number are more than 1,032 and the women religious also more than 990.

Among the most characteristic of the new saint's works were the "Little Cottolengos," for the abandoned and those who suffer. They arose on the outskirts of large cities as "new pulpits" from which to talk about Christ and the Church, "beacons of faith and humanity," as the saint said.

"The heart of this strategist of charity was unbounded because it was open to the love of Christ," the Pope said during the canonization homily. "Passion for Christ was the soul of his courageous life, the inner force of an altruism without reservations, the ever fresh source of an indestructible hope." 

The first foundation of the Little Work of Divine Providence in the United States was a home for the elderly Italian immigrants in Boston.

In spite of a series of strokes at the age of sixty-five, Don Orione remained alert and active. He was determined “to die standing”, and he continued to write long letters advising distant houses of his community until the day of his death in 1940. His last words were, “Gesù, Gesù, Gesù.”

On October 26, 1980, Don Luigi Orione was beatified by Pope John Paul II. Nearly twenty-four years later, Blessed Luigi Orione was canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 16, 2004. 

Today, the charitable organizations begun by Saint Luigi Orione are still operating in abundance throughout the world.

The English Delegation "Mother of the Church", run presently by Father Malcolm George Dyer are present in Philippine, India, Jordan, Kenya, United Kingdom, Ireland, and in USA.

Don Orione missionaries have been present in Kenya since the arrival in 1996 of the first Italian priest Fr Giuseppe Vallauri, who had been resident in England for many years. Fr Vallauri settled in Langata South Road in the outskirts of Nairobi purchasing a house which later became the first seminary.

During the Perpetual Profession of Br. Maurice

Today they are six (6) Orionini fathers in three (3) communities, Nairobi, Kandisi and Kaburugi. On 25 February 2013 we have counted seventeen (17) years of our presence in East Africa, counting four (4) Kenyans Priests and one (1) soon coming, two missionaries priests, one from Chile and one from Côte d’Ivoire, two parishes, Kandisi and Kaburugi, one (1) formation house for students in theology and philosophy, five (5) young religious, one (1) in Noviciate in the Philippines, 13 young in philosophy and 7 new aspirants seeking to begin the first year of philosophy... The future is bright with the help of our saint Founder, Saint Luigi Orione.

Nairobi Community with Fr. Malcolm

But this brighten future is also due to the hard and devoted work of many precursors like Fr. Giuseppe Vallauri, Fr. Jose Martin, Fr. Paulo José Damin, Marek Krakus., Fr. Malcolm George Dyer, Bishop Raymond Ahoua.