Rev. Fausto Stampiglia calls it a career

The Rev. Fausto Stampiglia is larger than life — just about anyone and everyone will tell you.

To many, he’s the defining face of St. Martha Catholic Church and has been for more than 30 years. Countless families have had their children baptized by Stampiglia inside St. Martha’s, many of whom have grown up and gone to have their own sons and daughters baptized in the very same place. 

To clergy members, he’s even more as having been dean of the northern deanery, theologian to the Bishop, director of the permanent diaconate, an ex-officio member of the Presbyteral Council and the head of other institutions.

Generations of students at St. Martha’s Catholic School grew up with Stampiglia visiting their classrooms and fondly remember their time spent learning from him. 

He’s been many things to many people — a good man doing good deeds — in his tenure in Sarasota.

For Stampiglia himself, though, he feels his works and actions have been the simple result of living a life of meaning.

"Being a priest is living a life of joy," Stampiglia said. "This November it will be 62 years as a priest, 31 years in Sarasota. And it's been a joy."

But this long chapter has come to an end. Stampiglia recently retired after 31 years of service with St. Martha Parish. He finishes his career at 86. 

“Father Fausto deserves great recognition and praise for the pastoral work he has accomplished in his years of service with the Diocese of Venice,” Rev. Frank J. Dewane, the bishop of the Diocese of Venice, said in a statement. "While he is retiring and his cheerful presence will be missed, the legacy Father Fausto leaves behind will be remembered for generations. Father was a legend in his own time. I know that he will continue the good work of our Lord in his life going forward in all that he does.”

Stampiglia’s journey to the clergy started in an unexpected way: The priest grew up in Rome during World War II and remembers living under the threat of bombings and conflict when he was a young child.

He later on would play soccer with friends at the local seminary while in high school, where he one day met a visiting missionary bishop from China during confession.

“I meet this little shrimp of a man in this huge Italian chair,” Stampiglia said. “As soon as I enter, he puts a finger in my face and says, ‘God wants you to be a priest.’”

Stampiglia was interested — he was religious and passionate already — but it was a big ask. 

Taking vows of poverty and obedience wasn’t unheard of — they’d lost much during the war, and Stampiglia was used to listening to nuns with their corporal punishment at school — but he admits a vow of chastity was tougher thing to do. 

The missionary bishop suggested he try two years without committing a sin against chastity, and if he could make it though, he’d have what it takes to be a priest.

“Even looking at a naked statue (was a sin against chastity),” Stampiglia said. “Do you know how many naked statues there were at the time?”

His commitment won out, and Stampiglia found himself as a priest nine years later at 25.

Even that moment was larger than life. Stampiglia remembers telling fellow priests about the missionary bishop that put him on his path to embracing God, and he remembers the murmurs and laughs from the crowd that followed.

Another priest broke the news: The visiting missionary wasn’t a bishop, and he wasn’t even a priest. Rather, he was an asylum patient who escaped during a bombing in the war, stole a bishop’s robe from a cathedral and traveled to different convents while conducting Masses. 

“I told myself, ‘This was all definitely God’s will,’” Stampiglia laughs. 

His career nonetheless underway, Stampiglia moved from Italy to New York in 1964 where he served in Harlem as a pastor. He later found himself helping start a diocese in Pensacola in the 1970s. That led to him helping establish operations in Venice and eventually moved to Sarasota to work at Incarnation Catholic Church and eventually St. Martha in the early 1990. 

He wasted no time in making changes at St. Martha’s by adding programs to the church by helping establish the Vietnamese and Tridentine Rite Masses, establishing the Institute for Catholic Studies and Faith Formation and even helping create the Casa Santa Marta senior housing. 

Don Henry, a retired pastor at St. Thomas More Catholic Church for decades, has known Stampiglia for nearly 30 years as a remarkably warm presence, the type of guy who would go in for a hug rather than a handshake as a welcome. They met at a convocation in Boca Grande — Henry had just moved to Florida and admits he knew almost no other pastor — and was quickly welcomed by Stampiglia and was welcomed to the diocese. It made him feel at home.

“He’s a person who could take your monumental mountain (of a problem) and after listening to him, you walked away and it was only a molehill,” Henry said.

It’s the connecting with people, and the ability to capture them with a well-told sermon, is one of Stampiglia’s favorite parts of his vocation. 

“Becoming a priest is what the will of God is, as that fake bishop told me,” Stampiglia said. 

One of Stampiglia’s greatest and enduring accomplishments has been the support and near-resurrection of St. Martha Catholic School, which teaches kids from pre-K through eighth grade. 

The school was losing students, enough to the point that then-Bishop of the Diocese of Venice John Nevins suggested Stampiglia sell the school to help pay off debt. 

“I’m a product of Catholic school. I’m not an undertaker,” Stampiglia said. “I said ‘God, no,’ … and by 1995 we were looking to enlarge the school. 

Nevins granted Stampiglia permission to construct a new school on 20 acres on Fruitville Road, which sported a domed structure design that was popular in Italy. 

"He’s the life blood of the school,” St. Martha Catholic School Principal Siobhan Young said. “He’s dedicated every hour of his life to make sure it’s doing well and has a long term vision. Now that (his retirement) is a reality, it’s a little unbelievable to think what it’ll be like without him.” 

Young joined St. Martha Catholic School in the 2010s and quickly realized how much she’d be working with Stampiglia. He’s been a helpful presence — always calm, a good listener — when giving advice to Young, she said. 

Stampiglia typically makes his way to the school at least twice a week, but Fridays are always his big day: He visits every classroom and students and answers questions from the students. It’s a way to make them more comfortable.

“I want them to see a priest and learn how to deal with a priest,” Stampiglia said. “They get fascinated by the personality and the accent. In the future when they have questions, they know they can turn to a priest.”

Those questions range from his life in Italy to his favorite ice cream. And that’s just the start of his involvement. 

“He’s at every awards ceremony, presentation, play, fundraiser — all of it,” Young said. “He remembers everything and everyone.”

He keeps track of all those goings on, too. Stampiglia is a devoted documenter and takes photos and video of everything he attends. Every year when children graduate from the school in eighth grade, he presents them with a video from their time in pre school to eighth grade. 

With his retirement official May 14. Stampiglia is entering a new chapter of his life. He'll still be with St. Martha in preparing upcoming feasts and some events but will largely will be learning a new schedule where he isn't present at every Mass or school event. 

The past three decades have had familiarity and continuity, but now he’s preparing for something unknown. 

“It’s the final chapter, it’s getting ready to meet my maker,” Stampiglia said. “It’s time (to retire)."