Paul Albera

Paul Albera (in Italian Paolo Albera) 6 June 1845 - 29 October 1921) was a Catholic Roman Priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco, who served as Rector Major of that Congregation between 1910 and 1921.

Life Albera was the sixth child of a farmer family of None, a town between Turin and Pinerolo. He knew Don Bosco when he was 13 at the church of his town. On 18 October 1858 he joined the Don Bosco's youth center in Valdocco. He was among the first 22 Salesians to make religious vows. In 1863 Don Bosco sent him as assistant and teacher to the newly opened boarding school of Mirabello Monferrato, where one of his pupils was Luigi Lasagna, future Salesian missionary and bishop in Brazil. He was ordained as a priest on 2 August 1868 in Casale Monferrato. the General Chapter elected Albera as the second successor of Don Bosco. He continued the policies of Don Rua to increase the number of Salesian houses in the world. But he would face a difficult time with the World War I, when many young Salesians were brought to the armies, many of them into enemy troops of the time. One of those young Salesians was Renato Ziggiotti, his future successor.

In 1913 he opened a Salesian presence in Hungary