Remembrance, young people and education
Friends of Don Francesco
An association founded to preserve the memory of Monsignor Francesco Brustia and to support young people in the neighbourhood.
Remembrance and community life
Don Francesco and the young people of Sant’Agabio
It is impossible to speak of this Association without mentioning Father Francesco.
Don Francesco Brustia, after whom the church square is named, served as parish priest of our community from 1938 to 1957, when he was appointed Bishop of Andria by Pope Pius XII.
The hallmark of Father Francesco’s pastoral work, amongst the many initiatives he undertook, was his devotion to children and young people. An ever-increasing number of young people gathered around him, forming the first group of Catholic Action. The Association was later named after ‘Giuseppe Martelli’, in memory of the first young man whom Father Francesco invited to join, who died at a young age from tuberculosis.
The bond that Father Francesco forged with his young people never wavered.
The “Friends of Don Francesco”
Following his death in Mondovì on 17 June 1975, the oratorians educated by Monsignor Brustia, who belonged to the first ‘Giuseppe Martelli’ Association, founded a group called ‘Friends of Don Francesco’.
Since 1977, the group has awarded a scholarship to pupils in their final year of lower secondary school at the Bellini Comprehensive School who have distinguished themselves through academic merit, with the aim of keeping the memory of this great parish priest alive amongst the young people of the neighbourhood.
The scholarships are usually awarded on the Sunday preceding the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary; this is also intended as an opportunity for ‘Don Francesco’s young people’ to come together and enjoy a moment of fellowship, whilst honouring their priest, with a visit to the Barengo cemetery where he is laid to rest.
Today, many of those young people are no longer with us; what remains is the memory of them, together with that of a great priest who turned the neighbourhood of Sant’Agabio into a community that still lives on in his memory today.