Bixio, Giuseppe, 1819-1889, Jesuit priest of the Taurensis Province
- IE IJA J/2404
- Person
- 23 May 1819-03 March 1889
Born: 23 May 1819, Genoa, Italy
Entered: 22 August 1838, Chieri, Italy - Taurensis Province (TAUR)
Ordained: 1849, Georgetown College, Georgewown, Washington DC, USA
Died: 03 March 1889, Santa Clara University CA, USA
1838-1840: Chieri, Italy (TAUR), Novitiate
1840-1842: Turin College, Turin, Italy, Philosophy
1842-1843: Iriense College, Italy, Regency
1843-1847: Sassari College, Sassari, Italy, Regency
1847-1851: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA (MAR), Theology
1851-1854: St Mary’s Church, Duke Street, Alexandria, Virginia, USA (MAR), Curate
1854-1855: Frederick ND, USA (MAR), Tertianship
1855-1860: Santa Clara College, Santa Clara CA, USA, Curate at St Francis Church
1856-1859: St Joseph Church
1860-1861: Georgetown College, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA (MAR), Curate at Holy Trinity Church
1861-1866: St Mary’s Church, Duke Street, Alexandria, Virginia, USA (MAR), Curate
1866-1869: Santa Clara College, Santa Clara CA, USA, Prefect of Church, Teaching
1869-1878: St Ignatius College SJ, San Francisco CA, USA, Curate at St Joseph Church and Confessor in College
1877-1878: Director of Industrial School
1878-1880: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (HIB), working in parishes
1880-1883: Santa Clara College, Santa Clara CA, USA, Curate and Hospital Chaplain
1883-1887: San Jose CA, USA, Curate
1887-1889: Santa Clara College, Santa Clara CA, USA, Curate and assisting at Saint Joseph Catholic Church, Hope Street, Mountain View CA
◆ Brokers of Culture
Italian Jesuits in the American West 1848-1919
Gerald McKevitt SJ
Stanford University Press, Stanford, California USA, 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0-8047-5357-9
Chapter 3: Instant Dispatch: The Ideology of Emigration
p36
What was the outcome of this frequent uprooting? In some cases, it proved the truth of the cautionary proverb A/hero spesso trapiantato mai di frutti ecaricato ("A tree that is often transplanted is never loaded with fruit"). The trauma of multiple dislocation fostered instability and restlessness among vagabond Jesuits. Some, like Giuseppe Bixio, brother of Nino Bixio, the famous Piedmontese revolutionary, became rolling stones, incapable of lingering long anywhere. Mesmerized by motion, that ever-outward Jesuit passed his entire career on the go, working first in Maryland, then in California, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Upon returning to the West Coast, he next headed to Australia before finally coming to rest in California, where he spent the last years of his gypsy life.
Chapter 5: Attracted Towards Remote Lands
p99
Like other westerners in crisis, the Californians sought relief from Baltimore, Boston, and beyond. Anxious to find a president for Santa Clara College, Congiato appealed in 1856 to Charles Stonestreet, head of the Maryland Jesuits, pleading, "Your Reverence only can save me." "This College enjoys a very high reputation," he wrote, "and we must use every exertion to sustain it." In order to secure a president to replace the fallen Nobili, Congiato proposed a trade. Giuseppe Bixio, a Piedmontese Jesuit who was "always sighing after Maryland," would be released from California to resume pastoral work in the East. In exchange, Antonio Ciampi, a former president of the College of the Holy Cross, would come West to superintend Santa Clara. Stonestreet angrily retorted that this was not an even trade. Accusing Congiato of "Italian trickery," he refused to surrender the much-valued Ciampi. Instead, Stonestreet shrewdly exploited the crisis by ridding himself of an ineffectual Italian named Felice Cicaterri, for whom no employment could be found in Maryland. Thus it was that the hapless Cicaterri became the school's president.