Can. Bartolomeo Rolla (1831-1914)

Bartolomeo Rolla borned in Genoa in the 1831, his was from an examplary and numerous family, owner in Crevari of spinning factory. His elder brother was a clergyman himself. Bartolomeo has acheived to enter in the Jesuit order. The untimely departure of this brother, who was the family's tutor because they were missing their father, stopped his project for he had to run the family factory and had to take care of his family.
His social activity took place in Giaveno in the 1858, where he moved as director of his cousin Giuseppe's factory the cotton mill Rolla. The young director was soon apreciated by the workers for his goddnes and his understanding. Here as like at Crevari, said Mon. Carlo Bovero during the remembrance on Dicember 3 ^rd 1914, "he started to teach the workers with frequent catechism, then following an own project he build, in the factory, the gothic chapel intensifying that way with religious functions his apostolate". This allusion to "his apostolate" is enough to understand the director's soul, who became more than ever a father for the workers. Please note he was a father in the highest sense of the word. Nothing to do with the paternalism in his action in the workers' favor.
He putted over everything justice and honesty, he bothered only that the workers had fair wages and that they did not suffer, as in the 1872, when "the factories lavked of water and the workers lost too many days". So he wrote his cousin, ending this way: "I used to know your good heart, so I don't make short work and I let them work some days more than necessary".
When he thought right to raise the wages, he sollicited it to the owner, who answered him "I think your request fair enough, so I allow you the raise you suggested".
To give the people a materal help, in the 1870, he founded the "Società Cattolica" (the Catholic Society), one of the first in Piedmont, then enrich with a section for the mutual help and with a fund the inapt for work. These fundations costed no little sacrifices and misunderstandings, he had to wrote, "even from those who should help me". Meanwhile he paid from his own pocket 3.000 Lires (of those times!). Bit with the toughnessof the "holly" people he went on his way. So the society grew up for the benefits of the most and it became its favorit deed. That was the first of a large number of social deeds, that grew thank to the merits of Pio Rolla's nephew.
Even in the middle of such an activity, he still was a man of faith and prayer, grewing a tender dedication to the Holly Mother (he was the first in Giaveno who as a pilgrim in Lourdes in teh 1874) and to the Pope. He has been among the greatest benefactor of the Giaveno's seminar, that he helped in the 1872, in a very difficult moment, on request of the archibishop Mons. Gastaldi, giving as a loan, and succesisvely let it as an offer, 2.000 Lire, money that he asked his cousin to anticipate him.
Finaly, as he had to say, "the days of the trial are finished" (he was waiting since 26 years), he could wear the clergy suit and by the time he finished his teologicla studies he was ordered priest in the year 1880, and the nominated, in the 1886, effective Parish of the famed Church of San Lorenzo in Giaveno.
Se come direttore del cotonificio era largamente stimato, come sacerdote divenne il "padre dei poveri", l'illuminata guida di tante anime, continuando quelle attività sociali a favore degli operai che divennero lo scopo ed il tormento di tutta la sua lunga missione.
Nel 1886 collaborò con il fratello Costantino a dar vita alla banda musicale divenuta poi "Leone XIII". Nel 1885 per "sottrarre l'operaio all'usura spietata ed allo strozzinaggio" costituiva legalmente la "Cassa Rurale di Depositi e Prestiti", quindi fondò la "Società cattolica femminile" ed infine con mente e cuore, e quanto poteva disporre di suo, per le opere che sorgevano per volontà tenace del nipote Teol. Pio, tra cui primeggia la "Casa del Popolo" (divenuta poi "Opera del Sacro Cuore"), inaugurata il 12 settembre 1911 con un memorabile discorso dell'avv. Giovanni Battista Bertone.
Fondatore o ispiratore, ma soprattutto "anima" delle associazioni, tutto vivificando con la preghiera, accanto ad opere materiali, volle costituire la "Lega Eucaristica", opera spirituale che tutto doveva sostenere, dando per primo esempio di vero Sacerdote di intensa vita interiore.