BOSTON — New forms of media are powerfully shaping the world in the 21st century. But then Father James Alberione, who was born in 1884, knew that would happen.

The priest, who is scheduled to be beatified April 27, created the Daughters of St. Paul and nine other religious communities founded on spreading Christ's message as fast and effectively as other messages are spread through any modern form of communications.

Father Alberione's foresight of the power of the media is to be celebrated in St. Peter's Square, a ceremony that will come as a war-torn world of round-the-clock television coverage gathers around the electronic hearth.

Today, the communities Father Alberione founded have 17,744 members in dozens of countries and every region of the world. There are communities for priests, brothers and sisters, and both single and married lay people. Together, they put out hundreds of books, periodicals, CDs, videos, computer programs and Web sites — all designed to bring God's message in ways suitable to specific audiences.

“What we try to use is exactly what means of consumption [audiences are] using in terms of communication as means of reaching them with the Gospel,” said Sister Bernadette Reis, a Boston-based member of the Daughters of St. Paul, one of Father Alberione's orders.

The Pauline Family, as the groups collectively call themselves, began with the founding of the Society of St. Paul for priests and brothers on Aug. 14, 1910.

Eventually it grew to include room for nuns in the Daughters of St. Paul, the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master, the Sisters of Jesus Good Shepherd and the Institute of Mary, Queen of Apostles. The Institute of Jesus Priest (for diocesan clergy), the Institute of St. Gabriel the Archangel (for consecrated male seculars), the Institute of Mary of the Annunciation (for consecrated female seculars) and the Association of Pauline Cooperators (for lay people) rounded out the mix.

The final segment of the Pauline Family — the Institute of the Holy Family for married couples — was established in 1960.

“Although individually these institutes have their own organizational setups, they are bound together by one spirituality and one underlying mission,” said Society of St. Paul Father Andres Arboleda Jr., who is on the Central Commission for the Beatification of Father Alberione in Rome.

That mission, “to be lights of the Good News,” is carried from Staten Island to Seoul and from Chile to Congo. And it is done in a variety of ways.

Each year, the Pauline family publishes books covering spiritual enlightenment on everything from alcoholism to premarital sex. Its periodicals are still wide-reaching (the Society of St. Paul alone counts 87 published in 20 countries, including Famiglia Cristiana, Italy's largest weekly). They run radio and television stations, distribute Bibles and open schools.

And all of this work was inspired by one man.

Pline spirituality puts special emphasis on Mary, the Mother of Apostles. Says the order's American Web site:

Mary plays a notable role in Pauline spirituality.

The Pauline Family has the mission of making Jesus Christ known, imitated and lived as the master. It will carry out this privileged mission in a holy manner by making Mary, Teacher, known, loved and invoked. She gave the world Jesus Master, who is the blessed fruit of her womb. Pauline teaching will be immensely more effective if it is inspired, guided and comforted by Mary: “With her help you will not grow tired,” we sing in one of the Marian hymns. No one would want to deprive him or herself of such a great help. Pauline discipleship is to be wholly grafted onto Mary, who will form Jesus Christ in everyone. This means becoming Christians, apostles, saints (Alberione, CISP, p. 1338).

Devotion to Mary, which is a part of the Pauline spirit, has two ends for us: our religious sanctification and the pastoral apostolate; that is, reaching out to all men and women, “To Jesus through Mary.” Write well of Mary because she is the way to go to Jesus, the easiest way (Alberione, Ariccia, meditation notes, 1936).

The Pauline Family aspires to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Way, Truth and Life, totally in the spirit of St. Paul, under the gaze of the Queen of the Apostles (Alberione, AD 93).

The first devotion we find in the Church is devotion to the Queen of Apostles, as expressed in the Cenacle. It lessened a bit and became obscure with the passing of the centuries. You have the sweet mission of gathering the faithful around Mary, Queen of the Apostles. You are to reawaken this devotion. You are to fulfill this most delightful mission in the Church. It means reawakening all apostolates and arousing vocations.

Let us return to the sources. At the sources we find Mary, Queen of the Apostles, and if it was so at the beginning of the Church, there is nothing more certain than to draw from the ancient faith. The water is purer when it is taken from its sources (Alberione, HM VIII, 1947-1948, p. 80).

Early Vocation

Father Alberione was born on April 4, 1884, to a family of poor farmers in northern Italy. His devotion was evident early. When his first-grade teacher asked him his career aspirations, he decidedly answered, “I want to become a priest!”

During the course of his ministry, Father Alberione wrote books and established periodicals, all the while firming up his mission: to evangelize through modern means.

It was a philosophy ahead of its time. It was not until Vatican II that the Church recognized the media of social communications as a means of evangelization.

“He was not only ahead of his time, [but] he was [also] ahead of his ministry in the Church,” Sister Reis said. “The Church looked dis-favorably at the media and yet he saw it a positive means.”

‘All must consider St. Paul the Apostle as the father, master, example and founder. In actual fact he is. Through him the congregation was born, by him it was nourished and raised, from him it received its spirit.’

— Venerable James Alberione

Father Alberione died on Nov. 26, 1971, at age 85. Fifteen years later, he was declared venerable.

“He sensed that the 20th century would be marked by progress in the media of communications,” Father Arboleda said of his order's founder. “He saw in the media a new frontier for evangelization and felt that it was there that the Lord was calling him to serve.”

His beatification, his devotees say, is important because Father Alberione is an example to society's core demographic today.

“There was no one for the average Joe Blow,” Sister Reis said. Father Alberione shows “you can become holy with the 9-to-5, highly technical work that most people do.”

His beatification also sends a message about the Church.

“His person suggests that the Church is not an institution belonging to the past, preoccupied with the past,” Father Arboleda said. “He represents the Church's capability to embrace new means to continue her mission of evangelization.”

Matt Sedensky is

based in Honolulu.