November 14 - Joseph Pignatelli, born in Zaragoza, Spain, on December 27, 1737, came from families of great nobility, both on the side of his Italian father, Antonio Pignatelli, and his Spanish mother, Francesca Moncayo-Fernandez de Heredia. He lost his mother at the age of 4 and was raised in Naples.

From his childhood he knew Italian as well as Spanish, which would be very useful to him later on. Pignatelli entered the novitiate in Tarragona, Spain, on May 5, 1753. This period of spiritual formation was followed by two years of classical studies (1755-1757) in Manresa. He is in Calatayud for his studies in philosophy (1756-1759) and in Zaragoza for theology (1759-1763). He was ordained a priest in December 1762. He remained in Zaragoza to teach the humanities. In addition to teaching, he gave catechism to street children and visited the sick and prisoners. The edict of expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain in 1767 surprised him in Zaragoza. Together with the other Jesuits he went into exile. First in Corsica, then in Ferrara. They were joined there by the exiles from Mexico. It was in Ferrara that Pignatelli took his final vows as a Jesuit in 1771.

Two years later, on July 21, 1773, Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus. The two brothers, Joseph and Nicholas Pignatelli, both Jesuits, live for a while with the Spanish commissioner in Bologna. While Joseph continues to live as a religious, his brother Nicolas resumes a secular and princely life. In Bologna Pignatelli takes it upon himself to meet the other Spanish Jesuits in exile. He organizes spiritual and intellectual activities that allow them to face the very uncertain situation of exiled people received nowhere and having no future. Since they are all deprived of the right to exercise their priesthood, Pignatelli advises them to follow the practice of individual "spiritual conversation". Between 1779 and 1783 he himself was the spiritual director of his niece, married to the Duke of Villahermosa. A highly cultured man, Pignatelli also organized literary and cultural meetings for the noble families of Bologna, through which he brought many of them back to the faith. He gathered a collection of books and paintings. When he gives himself fully to the work of restoring the Society of Jesus, he will send this collection to his family in Zaragoza.

In 1797, the superior of the Russian Jesuits, Gabriel Lenkiewicz, had his representative in Italy, in whose hands Pignatelli privately renewed his religious profession on July 6, 1797. Pignatelli, however, sought canonical recognition and restoration of the Society, as Pius VII discreetly did for the Russian Jesuits in 1801. Close to Ferdinand, Duke of Parma and the King of Naples, he obtained that they ask the Pope to restore the Company in their states. Pope Pius VII acceded to their wish. After being restored in Parma, in 1804, the Society of Jesus was restored in the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. Pignatelli was appointed its first provincial by the Superior General in Russia, Father Gabriel Gruber. Immediately several colleges were opened at the request of the authorities: Rome, Tivoli, Orvieto. Vocations presented themselves. Pignatelli died in Rome on November 11, 1811. He will not know the universal restoration of the Society of Jesus in 1814, to which he contributed much. Making the link between the old and the new Society and having succeeded in obtaining a first new canonical approval, Pignatelli is considered the restorer of the Society of Jesus. Joseph Pignatelli was canonized by Pius XII in 1954.