Francesc Xavier Butinyà i Hospital

Who is Francesc Xavier Butinyà i Hospital?

Francesc Xavier Butinyà i Hospital was a Catalan missionary Jesuit, teacher and writer and the founder of two religious congregations of Sisters. He was the son of a prosperous factory owner. Nevertheless, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in Spain, he was an early proponent of the natural connection of the Christian faith with the working class, who were suffering in miserable working and living conditions.

On January 10, 1874 he founded the religious congregation of the Servants of St. Joseph in Salamanca, Spain, together with Saint Bonifacia Rodríguez y Castro. She was from a very poor background and had lived supporting herself as a ropemaker, when she met him. The congregation they founded was to live in the same manner as Jesus and St. Joseph, in their home in Nazareth, while simultaneously helping their neighbors, especially women, realize the realities of their lives in the light of the Gospel, that they might be free and critical members of their society.

In April of that same year, as a result of the anti-clerical decrees of the First Spanish Republic, he was expelled from Spain along with the entire Society of Jesus, of which he was a member. He continued to support the community in Salamanca through correspondence. After the fall of the Republic at the end of the year and the re-establishment of the Spanish monarchy, he was able to return. At that time, he settled in his native region of Catalonia.