Carlo Carretto

Carlo Carretto (2 April 1910 – 4 October 1988) was an Italian writer, Catholic and member of the Little Brothers of the Gospel.

Biography

Early life

Born in a peasant family from the Langhe, Carretto was the third of six children, four of whom went on to join religious orders. Early in his life, the family moved to a suburban neighborhood in Turin, where there was a Salesian oratory which would have much influence on the formation of the whole Carretto family. He became a teacher and worked with Italian Catholic youth.

Social activism

He entered the youth sector of the Catholic Action in Turin at the age of twenty-three by the invitation of its then president Luigi Gedda. After completing his studies, he graduated in Philosophy from Turin. From 1936 to 1952, his involvement in Catholic Action grew until he became its National Youth President. In 1940, after winning a competition, he was sent to be the Educational Director in Bono, Sardinia. But his involvement there was short due to conflicts with the Fascist regime and the influence his teachings exerted on young people beyond the bounds of the school. So he was sent to Isili and then back to Piedmont. There he was allowed to resume his work as a teaching director at Condove, in Susa Valley, about 30 kilometers from Turin. With the advent of the Italian Social Republic, he received from Rome the task of reorganizing the structure of the Catholic Action of Northern Italy. From a business point of view, he was removed from the list of teaching directors and kept under surveillance for not having joined the regime.

At the end of the war in 1945, Caretto and Gedda jointly created the National Association of Catholic Masters in Rome. In 1946, he became the national president of the Italian Youth of Catholic Action (GIAC). In 1948, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the foundation of Catholic Action, he organized a large youth demonstration in Rome which became known as the famous gathering of the three hundred thousand "Green Basque". Shortly thereafter he founded the International Office of Catholic Youth, of which he became the vice president. In 1949, with his friend Enrico Dossi, he created a new agency within the GIAC dedicated to young people's tourism. In time it would become the Youth Tourism Center (CTG), of which he was the first national president.

In 1952 Carretto found himself in disagreement with an important part of the Catholic political world that desired an alliance with the political right. He had to resign from his position as president of GIAC. It was at this time that he decided to join the religious congregation of the Little Brothers of Jesus which had been founded by René Voillaume and inspired by Charles de Foucauld.

Religious life On 8 December 1954, he left for the novitiate of El Abiodh, near Oran, Algeria. He later made vows and was ordained a priest. For ten years, he lived an eremitical life in the Sahara composed of prayer, silence and work, an experience he expressed in Letters from the Desert, as in all the books he would later write. It inspired him to create a quiet place in Italy for prayer.

List of works published in Italian Carlo Carretto. Letters from the Desert. Brescia, La Scuola, 1967. Carlo Carretto. El-Abiodh - Spiritual Diary: 1954-1955. Assisi, Cittadella, 1990. Carlo Carretto. What Matters is to love. Rome, Ave, 1995. Carlo Carretto. And God saw that it was good. Rome, Ave, 1995. Carlo Carretto. Small Church Family. Rome, Ave, 1996. Carlo Carretto. In love with God. Autobiography . Assisi, Cittadella, 1997. Carlo Carretto. Letters to Dolcidia: 1954-1983. Assisi, Cittadella, 1997. Carlo Carretto. The God who Comes. Rome, Città Nuova, 1998. Carlo Carretto. Love Blossoms in the Desert. Cinisello Balsamo, San Paolo, 1998. Carlo Carretto. Blessed are You who Believed. Cinisello Balsamo, San Paolo, 1999. Carlo Carretto. The Utopia that has the Power to Save you. Brescia, Queriniana, 1999. Carlo Carretto. My Father I abandon myself to you. A commentary on the prayer of Charles de Foucauld. Rome, New Town, 1999. Carlo Carretto (edited by). Stories of a Russian Pilgrim. Assisi, Cittadella, 2000. Carlo Carretto. Why Lord? Pain: secret hidden over the centuries. Bologna, EDB, 2001. Carlo Carretto. An Endless Journey. Assisi, Cittadella, 2002. Carlo Carretto. Beyond Things. Assisi, Cittadella, 2003. Carlo Carretto. I Searched and Found. My experience of God and of the Church. Assisi, Cittadella, 2003. Carlo Carretto. I, Francis. Assisi, Cittadella, 2003. (First edition 1980 - ) Carlo Carretto. The Desert in the City. Cinisello Balsamo, San Paolo, 2003. Carlo Carretto. The Strength of Abandonment. Spiritual abbreviation of a seeker of God. Curated by Roberta Russo. Turin, Gribaudi, 2003. Ernesto Balducci, Carlo Carretto. The Sanctity of Poor People. Cinisello Balsamo, San Paolo, 2003.