BIOGRAPHIE OF THE NEW GUARDIAN

Fr Carlo Maria Laborde was born in 1954 in Uruguay, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. His parents, Umberto and Maria Teresa Arronga, were children of French immigrants.

The young Carlo felt called to the religious life and the first signs of his vocation appeared in Uruguay. He was studying in the Italian Culture Institut of Montevideo, when he found a copy of the magazine “Voice of Padre Pio” and won a scholarship to learn Italian language and culture at the Perugia University. He wrote a letter to Fr Gerardo de Flumeri, asking for the possibility to experience fraternal brotherhood in his friary. The then Provincial Minister Fr Crispino Di Flumeri agreed.

Carlo arrived in San Giovanni Rotondo and was impressed by the warm welcome of the Superior Fr Pietro Tartaglia, who invited him to dinner with the brotherhood in the refectory.

The young Uruguayan came to a decision: after a period of Postulancy, he vested the habit of the Capuchins on November 16th 1980 in Morcone (Benevento). On October 20th 1981 he took his simply vows and confirmed definitively the will to live in obedience, poverty and chastity in Cerignola on December 8th 1984. It was the day of his 30th birthday, bit above all it was the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

On June 21st 1987 Fr Carlo Maria was ordained priest in the St Peter’s Basilica by the Servant of God Pope John Paul II.

Before being the new Guardian of the brotherhood in San Giovanni Rotond, he was director of the Postulancy House in Morcone, novice teacher in Morano Calabro and parish priest in Pietrelcina.