Agliardi, Antonio

AGLIARDI, ANTONIO. - Cardinal, b. at Cologno al Serio (Bergamo) on 4 Sept. 1832, d. at Rome on 19 March 1915. From the diocesan seminary he moved to the Apollinare in Rome (1850), distinguishing himself in philosophy, theology and both laws. After a sensational polemic with Fr. Passaglia he devoted himself to the pastoral ministry in the parish of Osio-Sotto (1865-77), and to teaching at the seminary of Bergamo, subsequently professing, at the behest of Pius IX, moral theology in the urban college of Propaganda Fide. Titular archbishop of Caesarea and apostolic delegate in the Indies (1884), there he negotiated concordat agreements with Portugal and increased the work of missionary penetration, especially by attending to the proper formation of the native clergy. Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs between 1886 and 1889, he supported at that historical moment of the long-standing Roman question tendencies and currents that were often, even authoritatively, conciliatory. The contribution he made to the settlement of the ill-fated Kulturkampf and to the religious pacification of Germany opened to A. the nunciatures of Munich (1889-93) and then of Vienna (1893-96), during which he cooperated both in the development of the social action of German Catholics, which was to influence so greatly the maturing of the teachings of the encyclical Rerum novarum, and in the application of those principles, against every reactionary obstacle, on the part of the enterprising Austrian Christian Socials ably led by Lueger, and of the lively Hungarian Catholic-Popular party. Extraordinary envoy to Moscow for the coronation of Nicholas II in 1896, he was elected cardinal of the title of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus on 22 June of the same year, suburbicarian bishop of Albano in 1899, prefect of the economate of Propaganda in 1902, vice-chancellor of Holy Roman Church in 1903. Soon surrounded by well-deserved popularity, firm and clear in thought and action, he was a supporter of the first emergence of Christian democracy in Italy as well. He took part in the conclaves of Pius X (1904) and of Benedict XV (1914).

Paolo Dalla Torre