Giuseppe Baldo was born on 19 February 1843 at Puegnago on the western shore of Lake Garda, in the province of Brescia, the sixth of nine children of the farmer Angelo Baldo and the midwife Ippolita Casa. He was baptized the following day in the parish church of Saint Michael the Archangel. Several of his siblings died in infancy. When he showed signs of a priestly vocation, his mother admonished him with words that shaped his whole life: there are only two kinds of priests—either a good priest, or nothing.
At about sixteen he entered the diocesan seminary of Verona. Distinguished for piety, discipline, and study, he was ordained priest on 15 August 1865, the feast of the Assumption, at only twenty-two years of age, by Bishop Luigi di Canossa, with a special dispensation from Pope Pius IX. After a brief service as parish vicar at Montorio, he was appointed vice-regent of the Episcopal College in Verona, where for some eleven years he formed young men as educator, spiritual guide, and writer on prayer, pedagogy, and seminary life.
On 17 November 1877 he took possession of the poor rural parish of Ronco all'Adige in the Diocese of Verona. He found there ignorance, disease, usury, and open hostility, including death threats from a local Masonic group. He declared to his people: "I am your parish priest. Yours; therefore all for you." He remained their pastor for thirty-eight years until death, seeking nothing but the salvation of souls.
From that parish countless works of social and charitable commitment sprang forth. In 1882 he instituted the sodality of the Handmaids of Charity of Saint Mary of Help to care for the sick in their homes, together with a free kindergarten, a work school, a parish gymnasium for vocations, and a circulating library. He founded a parish committee of men and an association of Christian mothers. In 1884 he established the Workers' Mutual Aid Society to defend the poor from usurers; in 1888 he opened the small hospital "Casa Ippolita," named for his mother; in 1893 a shelter for the elderly; and about 1894 the Catholic Rural Bank. On 21 November 1894 he formally founded the Congregation of the Little Daughters of Saint Joseph to staff the hospital and shelter, assist the abandoned elderly and sick, and educate children and youth. The first habits were given in 1896 and the first professions in 1897; the Holy See approved the institute in 1913. It continues its mission today.
Throughout his priesthood he lived a constant approach to God through Jesus Christ the Redeemer and divine Master, drawing near the festive assembly of the saints and the heavenly Jerusalem. He promoted Eucharistic devotion, the Forty Hours, and confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament, teaching that the Eucharist is light that illumines and food that restores and strengthens. Intelligent and open to the legitimate aspirations of his age for freedom, national unity, and social justice, he firmly resisted irreligious and anticlerical currents. He taught that the parish priest must proclaim the truth to great and small, rich and poor, good and bad, and that conversion is won less by extraordinary works that win admiration than by the cross of bitterness and humiliation.
In his last twenty-two months he suffered a long and painful terminal illness, borne with almost incessant prayer, abandonment to God, and without complaint. He died at Ronco all'Adige on 24 October 1915, aged seventy-two, consumed by labors, purified by long sickness, and rich in virtues and merits. The whole parish gathered for his funeral; the reputation of holiness was immediate. His remains were later transferred to the chapel of the motherhouse of the Little Daughters. Declared Venerable in 1987, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 31 October 1989.
May Blessed Giuseppe Baldo obtain for us a priestly and lay charity that sees Christ in the poor, and may we imitate today his steadfast Eucharistic love.
