Gaetano Catanoso was an Italian Catholic priest and the founder of the Suore Veroniche del Santo Volto (1934). Catanoso served as a parish priest in two different parishes for his entire ecclesial life and was an ardent devotee of the Face of Jesus which he promoted to the faithful. He also founded the Poor Clerics to encourage vocations to the priesthood while forming the Confraternita del Santo Volto (1920) to spread devotion to the Face of Jesus. He dedicated his pastoral career to bringing the Gospel message to all people and hiked or rode on a mule to reach distant and surrounding mountain villages in order to evangelize to people.
Zygmunt Gorazdowski was a Polish Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. Gorazdowski suffered from tuberculosis during his childhood which impeded his studies for the priesthood in what required him to take time off in order to recover before he could be ordained. Once he was ordained he served in various parishes while setting up homes for orphans and single mothers as well as hospices and other establishments for a range of people; he was a prolific writer of catechism and other religious notes for the benefit of his flock.
Celine Chludzińska Borzęcka was a Roman Catholic professed religious and the co-foundress - along with her daughter Jadwiga Borzęcka - of the Sisters of the Resurrection. Borzęcka desired the religious life but married in obedience to her parents and bore four children; two died as infants. After her husband's death, she chose to follow the spiritual path with her daughter at her side and began a life in community in Rome.
Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinello was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Benedictine Sisters of Providence. Frassinello married to appease her parents in 1816 but the couple decided to lead a chaste life and both pursued a call to the religious life with Frassinello joining the Ursulines in Capriolo at Brescia. But husband and wife later reunited after setting out to establish schools for the education of girls and the pair moved back to Genoa where she founded her order in 1838 based on the Benedictine charism.
María Bernarda Bütler, born Verena Bütler, was a Swiss religious sister. She founded the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Sinners and served in the missions in Ecuador and Colombia. Bütler worked for the care of the poor in these places until her exile from Ecuador and entrance into Colombia where she worked for the remainder of her life. The congregation moved there with her, and continued to expand during her time there until her death.
Stanisław Kazimierczyk was a Polish Catholic priest and a professed member of the Canons Regular of the Lateran. He became noted for his ardent devotions to both the Eucharist and to his personal patron saint, Stanislaus of Szczepanów, as well as for his charitable dedication to the ill and poor of Kraków.
María Pilar Izquierdo Albero was a Spanish religious sister who founded the Missionary Work of Jesus of Mary (1939). Albero founded her order at the end of the Spanish Civil War - when it was safe to do so - after having rallied from a serious form of blindness and paralysis from 1927 to 1939 though her order was later disbanded and restarted again after a series of complications.
Blessed María Pilar López de Maturana Ortiz de Zárate, also known by her religious name Margarita María, was a Spanish Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Mercedarian Missionaries of Bérriz. The religious made several international trips in order to serve in the missions as her order often dabbled in and undertook these trips despite a serious ulcer that transcended into stomach cancer but nevertheless she continued to promote the charism of the missions.
Blessed Bruna Pellesi, known as Maria Rosa of Jesus, was an Italian nun who was a member of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Christ. Pellesi served as an educator in places such as Sassuolo until she contracted tuberculosis and was moved to various sanatoriums for recuperation until the end of her life when she died in her convent.
María Guadalupe García Zavala – born Anastasia Guadalupe García Zavala – was a Mexican Roman Catholic religious sister and the co-founder of the Handmaids of Santa Margherita and the Poor. She is also known as "Mother Lupita". At one time, she was engaged to be married but she decided her religious call was too strong for that and she broke off her engagement in order to pursue this call. She dedicated herself to the care of ill people and was noted for her compassion and faith.
Giovannina Franchi was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Suore Infermiere dell'Addolorata. Franchi was engaged for a brief period of time and the death of her fiancé prompted her to review her life and what her religious convictions were telling her to do; she had been involved in countless charitable works in the past and so dedicated herself to the care of the ill. Her order became tasked with aiding the ill across Como and the smallpox epidemic in 1871 thrust them into action later claimed Franchi's life.
Rosa Elena Cornejo Pazmiño, also known by her religious name María Francisca of the Wounds, was an Ecuadorian religious sister in the Roman Catholic Church. She founded the Hermanas Franciscanas Misioneras de la Inmaculada.
Antonia Maria Verna was an Italian Roman Catholic religious sister and the founder of the Suore di carità dell'Immacolata Concezione. Verna left her hometown when she was fifteen due to increasing offers of marriage and returned sometime later when she decided to pursue her religious vocation. Her emphasis was on catechism and founded her religious congregation to better teach catechism to children as well as to tend to ill people.
Paula Montal Fornés was a Spanish Roman Catholic professed religious and the foundress of the Sisters of the Pious Schools. Montal Fornés dedicated her religious career to serving as an educator in Barcelona where she founded schools for people in the area. The death of her father when she was ten forced her to help her mother raise her siblings though was free to pursue her religious inclinations once this was achieved; she and a close friend began setting up a series of schools before formalizing her idea for the establishment of a religious congregation that would be based on education and the establishment of additional schools nationwide.
Giuditta Vannini – also known as Giuseppina – was an Italian Roman Catholic nun who became a Camillian. Together with Luigi Tezza she established the religious congregation known as the Daughters of Saint Camillus. She and her two siblings were orphaned as children and were placed in different homes; she was raised and educated in Rome under nuns where her vocation to the religious life was strengthened. Vannini later tried joining a religious order but was forced to leave during her novitiate period after suffering from ill health. She and Tezza met in 1891 and founded a religious congregation of which Vannini served as Superior General until her death while Tezza was exiled to Peru around 1900.
Barbara Maix, ICM was an Austrian Catholic who established the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and assumed the religious name Maria Barbara of the Holy Trinity. Maix dedicated her life and service to the adequate treatment of the poor and ill with an added emphasis on the recognition of female dignities.
Manuela de Jesús Arias Espinosa, also known by her religious name María Inés Teresa of the Blessed Sacrament, was a Mexican religious sister in the Roman Catholic Church and the founder of both the Poor Clare Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament (1945) and the Missionaries of Christ for the Universal Church (1979). She lived during the time of the Cristero War and remained out of the nation during some of it in order to avoid the anti-religious persecution of the times.
Mariano da Roccacasale - born Domenico di Nicolantonio - was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious from the Order of Friars Minor. He was of peasant stock and entered the order in his twenties as a professed religious rather than as an ordained priest. He was an influence in the decision of Giuseppe Oddi joining the Franciscans after their 1863 encounter. He became titled as a Servant of God under Pope Leo XIII on 12 December 1895 with the commencement of the canonization cause. He received the title Venerable in 1923 under Pope Pius XI; Roccacasale was beatified - alongside Oddi - when Pope John Paul II presided over the late Franciscans' beatification on 3 October 1999.
Vicenta Chávez Orozco, also known by her religious name María Vicenta de Santa Dorotea, was a Mexican Roman Catholic nun and the founder of the Servants of the Holy Spirit and the Poor. Orozco was admitted into a hospital in Guadalajara with pneumonia and there experienced a radical call to help others in the same hospital who were ill - she recovered and soon returned to fulfil this promise while later becoming a religious and establishing her own order in order to advance this mission.
Carmen Elena Rendiles Martínez - in religion María Carmen - was a Venezuelan Roman Catholic professed religious from the Servants of the Eucharist and the founder of the Servants of Jesus of Caracas. Rendiles served in a leadership position for her order in France where she spent her time of religious formation and returned to Venezuela to found her order in 1965 and assume control as Superior-General of her new order.
