MR. ANTONIO RONCHI He began the process of life in Cinisello Balsamo, son of Mario Piero and Agnese Berra. Three days later, at the baptismal font of S. Martino in the parish church, he was given the name of Antonio, while he received the sacred chrism, seven years later, from Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster on 20 September 1937.
The family, modest but dignified, lived in a small house just outside the town among meadows and woods, places that were not unlike those in which he lived in his life as a missionary. With Angelo, his younger brother, he spent his days happy, even if, in one of them, he had to dive into a muddy ditch to free him from the deadly circumstance he had stumbled upon with a little boyish prank. Angelo will always love him immensely and, during his hospitalization, he will receive his extreme confidences and wishes.
At the height of his youth, around the age of sixteen, he seriously thought about consecrating himself to God. He consulted the parish priest; he prays, seeks. He knows the Opera don Guanella and falls in love with its charisma of attention to the poor and the suffering and knocks on the door of the S. Gerolamo Seminary in Fara Novarese, to start the secondary school, accompanied by the parish priest's guarantees: «It offers certain signs of religious perception; belongs to a good and honorable family and, within the parish, is of commendable conduct in every respect".
He spends two years in Fara Novarese and goes on to complete the course of humanistic studies in the new S. Giuseppe Seminary in Anzano del Parco (CO), where he is able to prepare for the Novitiate as guaranteed by the superior of the House, Don Antonio Fontana: «It is a young man of excellent piety; of a sincere, open, submissive, though somewhat fiery disposition; full of good will and spirit of sacrifice".
In the beginning of the Don Guanella House in Barza d'Ispra, on Lake Maggiore, he has Don Olimpio Giampedraglia as his master father, who «fortiter et suaviter» guides him in the way of the Lord: «He is well intentioned, by nature a somewhat impulsive and punctilious» and then Don Armando Budino, holy priest and excellent educator of souls. He relies on him to help smooth out the impulsive and rather inflexible character.
Professed on 12 September 1953, then following the process of formation and study typical of those times, to be definitively bound to the Congregation on 12 September 1958.
Due to the need to have experienced educators in the various institutes of the Work, Ch. Antonio reaches the Istituto Beato Bernardino T. of Vellai di Feltre, where he finds excellent teachers for the four-year period of theology and meets Don Paolo Cappelloni, with the which will form a friendship interwoven with esteem and trust, which will follow him in the rest of the time he will remain in Italy, before the mission in Latin America.
It is on the eve of the priesthood, when he submits his definitive will and the intentions of his life to the superior: «After mature reflection and advice, I declare that I feel called to the priesthood and to the religious state with the sole purpose of sanctifying myself and making saints the others», reassuring the Superior General Fr Armando Budino, his formator in the Novitiate, that he had overcome the obstacles he brought with him due to his restless character and the uncertainties of difficult moments in the past.
He became a priest on 23 May 1959 in the chapel of the Institute of Vellai di Feltre, consecrated by Mons. Gioacchino Muccin, bishop of Feltre and Belluno.
Ordained a priest, grateful to the Lord for that immense gift received, he willingly accepted to go to mission land. On 22 August 1960, on board the ship Giulio Cesare, he left Genoa for Chile, where he reached the headquarters of the Hogar Sagrado Corazón in Rancagua.
The following year he landed in Puerto Cisnes, in the southern part of Chile, a place with a harsh climate. He immediately finds himself at home, at ease as an educator among minors and does not neglect his apostolate to the local people.
Fr. Antonio lives the freshness of apostolic enthusiasm. For 36 years he will dedicate his life to the people of Aysén, bringing into play all that nature, grace and history had given him, including mission stations, new foundations, social initiatives, radio and television centres.