Eugenio Reffo (2 January 1843 - 9 May 1925) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and co-founder for the Congregation of Saint Joseph that he himself later professed into. Reffo taught before becoming a priest and collaborated for most of his life with religious newspapers in Turin before collaborating with Leonardo Murialdo in the founding of a religious congregation. He went blind in his last two decades but would continue to dictate his articles until his death. He also was responsible for administration and expansion for the order and during his time helped expand the order on an international level. The process for his prospective beatification opened in the late 1970s after the Murialdines decided to launch his cause and he became titled as a Servant of God. It made its next major stride in mid-2014 after Pope Francis confirmed his heroic virtue and titled the late priest as Venerable. Life Eugenio Reffo was born in Turin on 2 January 1843 as the last of five children to Pietro Reffo and Carolina Piana. He had two brothers and two sisters who were all his seniors. His eldest brother Enrico (1831-1917) became a painter while Ermanno died aged 42 and in his life collaborated with the Vincentian Conference. His sister Ildegarde entered the Merici Sisters as a professed religious and his last sister was Adila. Reffo was baptized just hours after he was born in the metropolitan cathedral as "Eugenio Giuseppe". He first studied under the De La Salle Brothers in Turin. From May 1855 until its closure in 1859 he studied as a student at a Jesuit-run boarding school in Massa in Modena; its closure forced him to return to Turin where he did private philosophical studies until 1861. Reffo graduated and then from 2 November 1861 began teaching students though later set his sights on entering the priesthood which forced him to stop teaching so he could commence his ecclesial studies. He did his theological studies until he was ordained to the priesthood on 26 May 1866. In 1867 he travelled to Rome and then in Naples met Ludovico da Casoria. Following his ordination in 1869 he started to collaborate and write articles for the religious newspaper L'Unità Cattolica until 1892 when it moved to Florence; he began working with another newspaper until his death. In summer 1872 he travelled to France where he stopped in Paris and met