CASSETTA, FRANCESCO di PAOLA. - Cardinal, b. in Rome on 12 Aug. 1841, d. there on 23 March 1919. After completing his studies in the schools of the Roman seminary and earning a doctorate in theology and in utroque iure, he was ordained a priest on 10 June 1865. He would have wished to go to the missions among the infidels, but, out of obedience to his superiors, he had to remain in Rome, where he devoted himself to the Christian education of youth. On 27 Nov. 1884 he was elected titular bishop of Amata and the following year he was appointed president of the night schools of religion, at the same time holding the office of president of the Pontifical Academy of the Immaculate Conception. On 25 Nov. 1887 he was promoted titular archbishop of Nicomedia and appointed secret almoner of Leo XIII. Having become on 19 March 1895 titular patriarch of Antioch and vicegerent of Rome, he was a precious collaborator of Cardinal Parocchi in the ecclesiastical government of the City, and on 1 April 1899 he had the singular good fortune to confer, in his private chapel, priestly ordination on Eugenio Pacelli, today the reigning pontiff Pius XII. Created a cardinal of the title of S. Crisogono by Leo XIII on 19 June 1899, he subsequently became bishop of Sabina (27 May 1905), of Frascati (27 Nov. 1911) and subdean of the Sacred College. He was, moreover, prefect of the Congregations of the Council and of Studies and librarian of the Holy Roman Church.
In Sabina he visited the vast and mountainous diocese twice, and at Frascati he directed his particular care to the seminary and celebrated, with great solemnity, the centenary of the Madonna di Capocroce. He was a generous and ardent promoter of all the most modern forms of Catholic action, having as the emblem of his industrious life the most abundant charity. His rich family patrimony was left by him, by testamentary disposition, to the Congregation of Propaganda Fide for the poor missions.
Bibliography
Mario De Camilli