CATTANI, GAETANO MARIA. - Bishop, b. in Modena on 12 Sept. 1793, d. there on 28 Jan. 1863. Of austere and firm character, cultured, pious and charitable, having embraced the ecclesiastical career and having filled curial offices with distinction, he was elevated to the episcopal see of Carpi, where he proved himself a loving pastor and a zealous defender of the rights and prerogatives of the Church in the face of the raging of laicist jurisdictionalism.

An Italian of the old stamp, of deep-rooted legitimist sentiments and most devoted to the Holy See, C., together with many other contemporaries, saw in the innovating movements of his time the snares and the equivocations of the French revolutionary stamp, in open contrast with the ancestral cultural and social heritage. Thus, having come into conflict with the Piedmontese government, he first found himself deprived of the revenues of the episcopal mensa; then, despite his advanced age, he was, together with other excellent confreres, unlawfully seized by night and shut up in prison. This indeed bent his now weary fiber, but not his apostolically indomitable spirit.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: T. Bayard de Volo, Vita di Francesco V duca di Modena, IV, Modena 1878-85, pp. 300-304; E. Michel, s. v. in Diz. del Ris. naz., II, p. 609.

Paolo Dalla Torre

@incollection{ec3_cattani_gaetano_maria, author = {Dalla, Torre Paolo}, title = {Cattani, gaetano maria}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1165}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cattani-gaetano-maria} }

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Cattani, Gaetano Maria

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