The signs took him in a direction he hadn't expected.
Rossi went on to start the Bethesda Project, a onetime volunteer effort by the prayer group to help homeless men and women that grew into a $5 million, nonprofit agency - today one of the city's largest providers of services and housing for the homeless.
The 61-year-old Norbertine priest headed the group until 1991, when he transferred to a parish in New Mexico. He returned to the area in 1997 as pastor of St. Norbert Roman Catholic Church in Paoli and stayed involved with the Bethesda Project as a board member, but not as its hands-on director.
That changes this month. Rossi's life is coming full circle as he returns as executive director of the Bethesda Project, taking over from Angelo Sgro, 67, who is retiring after a decade.
"We were led to the city," Rossi said in an interview at Bethesda Bainbridge, a communal residence for formerly homeless men at 15th and Bainbridge Streets in South Philadelphia.
Rossi's work with the homeless started in 1979 with a call out of the blue from an acquaintance with an unusual request.
Sister Mary Klock, who ran a women's shelter in Center City for the Sisters of Mercy, needed volunteers to support eight formerly homeless women with mental illness who were moving to a group residence at 11th and Spruce Streets. They would need help with basics such as shopping, cleaning their rooms, taking their medications.
Would Rossi and his prayer group be interested in working with them?
