CASSETTA, FRANCESCO di PAOLA. — Cardinal, born in Rome on 12 August 1841, died there on 23 March 1919. Having completed his studies in the schools of the Roman seminary and obtained degrees in theology and atroque iure, he was ordained a priest on 10 June 1865. He would have wished to go on missions among the infidels, but, in obedience to his superiors, had to remain in Rome, where he devoted himself to the Christian education of the young. On 27 November 1884 he was elected titular bishop of Amata, and the following year was appointed president of the evening schools of religion, while at the same time holding the office of president of the Pontifical Academy of the Immaculate Conception. On 25 November 1887 he was promoted to titular archbishop of Nicomedia and appointed secret almoner to Leo XIII. Having become titular patriarch of Antioch and vicegerent of Rome on 19 March 1895, he was a valuable collaborator of Cardinal Parocchi in the ecclesiastical government of the City, and on 1 April 1899 had the singular good fortune of conferring, in his private chapel, priestly ordination upon Eugenio Pacelli, today the reigning pontiff Pius XII. Created 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 November 1911), and subdean of the S. College. He was also prefect of the Congregations of the Council and of Studies, and librarian of the S. Roman Church.
In Sabina he visited the vast and mountainous diocese twice, and at Frascati devoted 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 existence the most overflowing charity. He left his considerable family estate, by testamentary disposition, to the Congregation of Propaganda Fide for poor missions.