This first contact with migratory reality added to his missionary vocation and to his meeting with John Baptist Scalabrini. Father Marchetti an "external missionary" of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles.

He created the Christopher Columbus Orphanage in São Paulo as a product of his faith and courage, and he donated his life on behalf of the impoverished.

Wherever poor and sick immigrant were, he was there to bring them comfort, faith, hope and enthusiasm. The material, human, social and spiritual welfare of migrants and marginalized people were revealed to him. By the time he was 27 years old he got infected by typhus and died on December 14 in 1896.

About Father Marchetti life, the Founder John Baptist Scalabrini said: "He lived a blameless life as a son of God between the neediest migrant and was a messenger of his Word. His life was not in vain: it was lost as a sacrifice and in service for Jesus Christ identified on the migrant (cf. Fl 1, l1-17)".

The Canonization Cause of Father José Marchetti is in progress since the centenary of his death in 1996.