Father Faccenda was founder of the Men and Women Missionaries and Volunteers of the Immaculata-Father Kolbe.
A native of San Benedetto Val di Sambro, Italy, he founded the missionary institute in Bologna in 1954.
The institute was based on the Marian-missionary spirituality of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who gave his life for a fellow prisoner in the Nazi death of Auschwitz.
The women’s branch of the missionaries institute is headquartered in Bologna. It comprises an ecclesial family consecrated to the Lord, with vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.
The missionaries are present in Italy, the United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Luxembourg and Poland. They received official recognition of pontifical right in 1992.
The men’s branch of the institute — the Missionaries of the Immaculata-Father Kolbe — was born in Brazil in 1997.
See www.kolbemission.org.
