BOETTO, PIETRO. – Jesuit, cardinal, archbishop of Genoa, born at Vignone in Piedmont on 19 May 1871, died at Genoa on 31 January 1946, justly acclaimed as “defender of the city.”
At the age of seventeen he entered the Society of Jesus, later serving as rector of the colleges at Genoa and Cuneo, provincial of the Turin province, visitor of the provinces of Aragon and Castile, procurator general, provincial of the Roman province, and assistant for Italy of his Order. Elevated to the purple in the Consistory of December 1935 by Pius XI, he carried out his duties in the Roman Curia as a member of numerous Congregations. In 1938 he was elected archbishop of Genoa, which he governed from 1938 to 1946 during one of the most critical periods in its history.
In the harsh events of the German occupation, he succeeded in averting reprisals, freeing victims, and alleviating the city’s distress, until by direct negotiations he was able to prevent the destruction of the port and its installations, already mined, and the shelling of the city, and to induce the surrender of the German occupation commander, General Meinhold (25 April 1945). Among the works he accomplished, mention should be made of the artistic arrangement of the sanctuary of Our Lady of Guard on Monte Figone. In recognition of his merits, the municipality solemnly conferred honorary citizenship upon him, and in the cathedral a funerary monument was erected to his memory.