Giovanni Stefano Allegra was born on the 26th December 1907 in San Giovanni La Punta (CT, Italy); at the age of 11 he entered the Seraphic College of Acireale and on the 13th October 1923 he began his novitiate in Bronte and was given the name Br Gabriele Maria.
On the 25th July 1929 he made his Solemn Profession. He was ordained a priest in 1930 and immediately expressed his desire to go as a missionary to China. In one of his first Masses, he asked the Blessed Virgin Mary to accompany him in his intent which was to translate the Bible into Chinese.
On the 3rd July 1931 he arrived in China; within a short time he had studied and learned the language, so much so that he began to exercise his ministry after only 4 months of his arrival. He baptized, confessed, celebrated Mass, preached and taught the catechism, all in Chinese amongst the Chinese people.
In 1932 he was Rector of the minor seminary of Heng Yang. On the 15th September, 1935, he began the work of translating Sacred Scripture into Chinese; even Pope Pius XI was informed by the Apostolic Vicar of Heng Yang about the work of Br Gabriel. On the 2nd August, 1945, he founded the Beijing Studium Biblicum, which after the Maoist revolution of 1949 was transferred to Hong Kong.
In 1955 he was awarded a degree in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical University of the Antonianum in Rome, meanwhile, back in China, he founded a Sociological Study on the Social Doctrine of the Church; in Singapore where he wrote and published two treatises on sociology: "De doctrina sociali christiana" and "Tractatus de Ecclesia et Statu". In 1975 he published the "Bible Dictionary" in Chinese.
After a life spent in ecumenical contact with the other Christian religions present in China, Br Gabriele died on the 26th January, 1976.
On the 14th January, 1984, the cause for his beatification was introduced in Hong Kong.
On the 29th September 2012, in the cathedral of Acireale (Sicily) he was beatified by Cardinal Amato, Prefect of the "Causes of Saints", at the behest of Pope Benedict XVI. In Rome, in the International College of St. Anthony (CISA), the Fraternity takes its name from Blessed Gabriele Allegra and is composed of student friars and professors from different parts of the world.
