Stephen’s early years of priesthood were spent in pastoral ministry attached to the Augustinian priory in Trento. Before long all Religious houses in the area were suppressed by the authorities and Stephen had to go to live with his brother and become in effect a secular priest. He was soon to take on a new and vitally important pastoral ministry. Recognising the educational needs of the poor and wishing to counteract the secularising influences of the time he set up a school in his home which attracted large numbers of pupils. His principal concern was the religious and moral education of youth but he also displayed genuine interest in doing everything in his power to meet the many spiritual and material needs of the poor of the city. His efforts were successful and he found himself having to seek larger premises to cater for the increasing numbers of children who wished to attend his school.
The authorities also noticed and appreciated his work. Eventually he was appointed inspector of schools for the Trento area. He was popular and respected and – which was no doubt much more important to him – he was able to exercise a fulfilling pastoral ministry in all but name.
But Stephen was not happy. When he learned that monasteries were reopening in the Papal States his mind was made up. Abandoning everything he left for Bologna to rejoin his Augustinian community. Every effort was made to entice him back to his previous work in Trento but nothing could outweigh the call to the religious and community life that he had missed for so long. There could be no going back.
Stephen’s Augustinian Order was also anxious to make good use of his talents. Before long he was appointed Master of Novices, first in Rome and later in Genazzano at the shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel. Some years later he was appointed parish priest at Genazzano and he would then return to the pastoral ministry for the final years of his life. He would give himself fully to the service of his parishioners with the same zeal and dedication he had always shown in all his earlier ministries. In 1839 the Genazzano area was badly affected by the plaque, with numerous and dangerous calls on the pastoral care of its priest. Stephen tried to answer every call with self-sacrificing dedication and with no concern for his own health. Daily he brought the Church’s comfort and support to the suffering and the dying.
Eventually he too became a victim. Reluctantly he was confined to bed, with only days to live. He died on the afternoon of 2nd February 1840. He is buried in a side chapel at the shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano, the devotion he had promoted and served. Stephen Bellesini was beatified by Pope Pius X in 1904.