Anastasio Ballestrero

Alberto Alberto Ballestrero was born in Genoa on 3 October 1913 as the first of five children born to Giacomo Ballestrero and Antonietta Daffunchio. He was baptized on 2 November 1913 in the Santa Zita parish with the name "Alberto".[2] His father worked in a Genoese port while his mother oversaw her children's religious formation. Two siblings died in the first few months of their lives. His mother died in 1923 after the birth of her final child in late 1922.[1]

Ballestrero attended a school in Genoa from 1919 to 1922. He was enrolled at the Collegio Belimbau in 1922 before he received his Confirmation in the San Martino di Albaro church on 3 May 1923; he made his First Communion the next month on 21 June.[2] He left the Collegio Belimbau in 1923 in order to pursue ecclesial studies to become a priest.

On 2 October 1924 he commenced his ecclesial studies under the direction of the Discalced Carmelites in Varazze. Ballestrero then joined that religious order in Savona and took both the habit on 12 October 1928 and the name Anastasio del Santissimo Rosario.[2] He made his initial profession on 17 October 1929. He was later transferred to the Genoese convent of Santa Anna in September 1932 for his philosophical and theological studies. But in 1932 he suffered from a life-threatening infection (and recovered in hospital from October to December 1932) before he made his solemn profession on 5 October 1934.[2]

He received the subdiaconate and then the diaconate in 1935 before he received his solemn ordination to the priesthood in the San Lorenzo Cathedral on 6 June 1936 but required a special dispensation for it due to the age requirement.[3] He began teaching philosophical studies at the "studentato" of Genoa-S. Anna from 13 August 1936 and initiated a preaching apostolate in a Genoese hospital (the "Bertani") from 1 January 1937.[2] In the late 1930s he was in Paris for further studies. Ballestrero was prior of the Santa Anna convent from 22 April 1945 to 1948 and was again elected as prior on 7 May 1954 after becoming the provincial for the Ligurian province of the order on 3 April 1948.[4] Before attending the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 he was twice elected as the general provost for the order on 9 April 1955 and later on 21 April 1961; he remained in that position until 20 May 1967. Ballestrero visited all 350 Carmelite convents and 850 Carmelite monasteries in the world except in Hungary which refused him entrance into the nation. He once served as President of the Union of Superior Generals.[2] During the Second Vatican Council he became friends with Henri de Lubac and was considered a close collaborator to the pope.

On 21 December 1973 he was appointed as the Archbishop of Bari. He received his episcopal consecration on in the Santa Teresa church 2 February 1974 in Rome from Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio with Bishops Michele Mincuzzi and Enrico Romolo Compagnone serving as the co-consecrators.[1] Pope Paul VI later named him as the Archbishop of Turin on 1 August 1977; he was enthroned in his new see on the following 25 September.[1] He was later being elected as the Vice-President for the Italian Episcopal Conference on 25 May 1978 and then served as its President from 18 May 1979 to 3 July 1985.[4] In 1975 he preached the Spiritual Exercises to Paul VI and the Roman Curia at the pope's invitation.[3]

Pope John Paul II elevated him into the cardinalate and named him as the Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria sopra Minerva on 30 June 1979. Ballestrero resigned as the Archbishop of Turin on 31 January 1989 and retired to the Santa Croce convent in La Spezia (though he would still continue to give spiritual retreats); he lost the right to vote in a papal conclave on 3 October 1993 after he turned 80.[4]

Ballestrero attended the various episcopal gatherings that the pope called and he was also appointed as a special papal representative to the inaugural ceremonies of the Theresian Year that commemorated the fourth centennial of the death of Saint Teresa of Avila which was from 14 October until 15 October 1981 in both Alba de Tormes and Ávila.[2] He was a noted theologian and was the author of a range of books of mediations and on Saint John of the Cross.[3]

He became known for his progressive beliefs and he rejected some of the popular Catholic movements such as Communion and Liberation. John Paul II reproached him for this to which he was said to have replied: "Holiness, when you get to know them better, you won't like them either!"[4]

Ballestrero died at his residence in La Spezia at 3:00pm on 21 June 1998 due to a long illness. His funeral was celebrated on 25 June. He is buried in the San Giuseppe del Deserto church attached to the same Carmelite convent in Varazze that he had entered in 1924.[2][3]

In reference to abortion the cardinal once declared that the Church must "never renounce its mission of evangelization and education of the human conscience".[5]