CATTANEO, ANGELO. - Of the Institute of Foreign Missions of Milan, first vicar apostolic of southern Honan (China), b. at Carvico (Bergamo) in 1844, d. at Chumatiens (China) on 13 Dec. 1910. After having exercised the ministry in the diocese, in 1869 he entered the Institute of Foreign Missions of Milan, whence he set out, in the same year, for Honan.
He studied the Chinese language with passion, into which he translated the catechism, ascetical pamphlets, catechetical instructions, and Gospel explanations, and he labored indefatigably, exerting himself especially during the famine of 1877-78. In 1884 he was appointed pro-vicar of the new mission of northern Honan, in which he strove to build chapels and schools, to train catechists and priests. Having returned, after ten years, to his mission in the South, he was procurator there and then pro-vicar. For the work of pacification carried out swiftly after the revolution of 1900 he was named a mandarin of the third grade. Elected vicar apostolic in 1904, he immediately began the pastoral visitation, which he repeated every year, despite serious hardships. To him is due the beginning of the great hospital of Chumatiens, later brought to completion by the National Association for Italian Missionaries, and the further division of the vicariate with the missionaries of the Institute of Parma, whom he had guided in the beginnings of the apostolate; he rebuilt the works destroyed by the revolution, and founded new ones. A man of great interior life, he employed in prayer the time not occupied by the ministry.
Bibliography
Raffaele Trotta