He is the “Secret Father” of the whole 1800’s movement of devotion toward the Blood of Christ and was the real “father in the spirit” of St. Gaspar Del Bufalo but not the “spiritual father” as he is often presented. Albertini is truly the one who formed the future Missionary and directed Gaspar to the foundation of the Missionaries.  Humanly speaking, Fr. Gaspar would never have discovered the marvels of the spirituality of the Most Precious Blood, nor would he ever have founded a congregation of Missionaries dedicated to work so that the Blood of Christ would not have been shed in vain. It was Albertini who introduced him to the devotion and to the mission that was to spring from this devotion. Gaspar Del Bufalo wrote about Albertini dozens of times in his letters, naming him to the Missionaries as “our founder.”

Francesco Albertini was born in Rome on June 9, 1770, to a Swiss man transplanted in the area of the Teatro di Marcello and a Roman woman who ran a hardware store in the popular Piazza Montanara. His father’s trade was called “tinsmith” in those days. Already as a child he was fascinated by the City and its ruins of the early times of the Church. He saw them as still bathed in the blood of the apostles Peter and Paul and the thousands of other martyrs. As the Blood of Christ had founded the Church, thus the blood of martyrs had cemented the Church in an unselfish love without interruption.  In the blood of the martyrs there was the continuity with the Blood of Christ.

Albertini’s devotion was nurtured by his reflection on a presumed relic of the passion of Jesus honored in the parish where he grew up and served as priest.  The relic was a piece of cloth which, according to the legend, had been cut from the mantle of the Centurion, precisely at the spot stained by the splash of blood and water that issued from the side of Jesus on the cross.

In an epoch when torrents of blood were shed to found a more just humankind, Albertini believed that the Blood of Christ was the emblem of a new humanity; the standard that could give back to the Christian faith the ideals of the French Revolution, purified of the hatred that had unleashed the incredible slaughter. The Blood of Christ had been shed precisely to inaugurate a society of people equal and free in a unity and communion brought about by the only God whom God’s children invoked as “our Father.”

To obtain such a Church and society, Albertini deemed it necessary to spread the devotion to the Most Precious Blood, which was capable of acting by its own strength. Therefore he initiated the Archconfraternity of the Most Precious Blood, which provided men and women dedicated to apostolic works a means toward assuring that the Blood of Jesus would not have been shed in vain. In his mind these institutes of men and women religious would often change in physiognomy. This was particularly true of the women’s institute because women’s role in society was not yet well-defined and women themselves were unprepared. At first he thought that the women’s branch should take care of helping the sick, but then he opted for education. 

For the masculine branch, Albertini considered Gaspar Del Bufalo, a zealous cleric and preacher with a flowing word, the man sent to him by God to carry out this vision. Albertini began to instill the devotion to the Blood of Christ in him and often called on Gaspar to collaborate with him. The tragedy of the exile imposed on the clergy who refused the oath ordered by Napoleon was providential for both of them. The two faced deportation together and, for an entire year, Fr. Albertini could be beside the one he called “my firstborn son.” Then they were separated for three years.

But upon their re-entry into Rome, with the last resistance of Gaspar overcome, the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Most Precious Blood came into being.  Albertini was made a bishop and assigned to the diocese of Terracina, one of the most degraded bishoprics, in order to test the new spirituality. Fr. Gaspar preached the parish mission that inaugurated Albertini’s episcopacy.

Unfortunately, a malaria epidemic took the life of Bishop Albertini on November 24, 1819, immediately at the conclusion of the inaugural mission. It seemed that everything was destined to end. Albertini died saying these words: “Lord, take me but not that son.”  He knew he had assigned the project to the right person.