Bruno Lanteri
| Venerable Pio Bruno Lanteri | |
|---|---|
Portrait by Michele Baretta.
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| Founder, Oblates of the Virgin Mary | |
| Born |
12 May 1759 Cuneo, Piedmont |
| Residence | Torino, Italy |
| Died | 5 August 1830 Pinerolo, Italy |
| Major shrine | Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Pinerolo, Italy (interred) |
| Influences | St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Alphonsus of Liguori, St. Teresa of Avila, Fr. Nicolas Joseph Albert von Diessbach |
| Influenced | Spiritual direction, parish missions, anti-Jansenistic moral theology, St. Joseph Cafasso, St. John Bosco, Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, St. Joseph Cottolengo |
| Major works | Réflexions sur la sainteté et la doctrine du Bienheureux Liguori (Paris, 1823) |
Venerable Father Pio Bruno Pancrazio Lanteri, O.M.V., or simply Bruno Lanteri (12 May 1759 – 5 August 1830), was a Catholic priest and founder of the religious congregation of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in northwestern Italy in the early 19th century. His spiritual life and work centered on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He was also renowned for challenging Jansenism by distributing books and other publications that promoted the moral theology of St. Alphonsus Liguori, as well as establishing societies to continue this work.
Lanteri's cause for canonization was begun in 1920 and he was declared Venerable by Pope Paul VI in 1965.
Lanteri's life was marked by physical suffering from his pulmonary conditions that restricted his public speaking ability and his poor eyesight, because of which he often sought an assistant to read aloud to him. At age seventeen he sought the quiet and prayer of Carthusian monastic life and, although his entry was prevented by fragile health, he maintained this desire for silence and solitude throughout his life. Witnesses of his life suggest that he reached the heights of mystical prayer during his years of house-arrest under Napoleon (1811–14).
At the death of Lanteri's mother in 1763, his father presented the four-year-old boy to a statue of Mary in their parish church, telling him, "She is your mother now." From this time, Lanteri maintained a deep and persistent devotion to Mary and communicated it to his colleagues and disciples, going so far as to declare that the religious institute he founded was principally the work of Mary and not his own.
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