AGLIARDI, ANTONIO

AGLIARDI, ANTONIO. – Cardinal, born at Cologno al Serio (Bergamo) on 4 September 1832, died in Rome on 19 March 1915. From the diocesan seminary he proceeded to the Apollinare in Rome (1850), obtaining degrees in philosophy, theology, and both laws. After a celebrated controversy with Fr. Passaglia, he devoted himself to pastoral ministry in the parish of Osio-Sotto (1865–77), and to teaching at the seminary of Bergamo; thereafter, commissioned by Pius IX, he taught moral theology at the urban college of Propaganda Fide. Titular archbishop of Caesarea and apostolic delegate in the Indies (1884), he negotiated concordat agreements there with Portugal and promoted the work of missionary penetration, especially by ensuring the proper formation of the indigenous clergy. Secretary of the S. Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs between 1886 and 1889, at that historic moment in the age-old Roman question he supported tendencies and currents that were often, and sometimes authoritatively, conciliatory. His contribution to the settlement of the ill-fated Kulturkampf and to the religious pacification of Germany opened for A. the nunciatures of Munich (1889–93) and then Vienna (1893–96). During these missions he contributed both to the development of the social action of the German Catholics, which was to exert such influence on the maturation of the teachings of the encyclical Rerum novarum, and to the application of those principles, against every reactionary obstacle, by the enterprising Austrian Christian Socialists ably led by Lueger, and by the vigorous Hungarian Catholic Popular Party. Extraordinary envoy to Moscow for the coronation of Nicholas II in 1896, he was elected cardinal of the title of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo on 22 June of the same year, suburbicarian bishop of Albano in 1899, prefect of the administration of Propaganda in 1902, and vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Church in 1903. Soon surrounded by well-deserved popularity, firm and clear-minded in thought and action, he supported the first emergence of Christian democracy in Italy as well. He took part in the conclaves of Pius X (1904) and Benedict XV (1914).