MORGANTI, PASQUALE. — Archbishop of Ravenna and a well-known author of ascetical writings, b. at Lesmo (Milan) on 13 Dec. 1852, d. at Ravenna on 18 Dec. 1921. He was a favorite pupil in Turin of S. Giovanni Bosco. Spiritual director of the Milanese diocesan seminaries, he had among his pupils a fine group of bishops.
Bishop of Bobbio in 1902, he remained there only two years, which sufficed both to promote the restoration of the celebrated crypt of S. Colombano and to establish the Catholic newspaper and the new institutions of Catholic Action.
Promoted in 1904 to the see of Ravenna and in 1909 also to that of Cervia, he did everything possible to lift the two dioceses out of the sad conditions in which they found themselves as a result of a now traditional anti-Christian propaganda conducted by the Mazzinian and Socialist parties. Thus, not only in the city but especially in the countryside, the number of unbaptized children, merely civil marriages, and funerals without Cross or priest was increasing. Signs of this renewal were: special care for the Seminary, which he enlarged and invigorated in spirit; his constant solicitude for the priests, for whom he convoked the Synods of Cervia and Ravenna, absent for more than a hundred years; the three pastoral visitations; the opening of a Salesian Institute for students and artisans; the reform of sacred music in the Cathedral; the creation of new parishes; the founding of nursery schools entrusted to nuns, with an attached Sunday oratory and workshop for young women; his substantial contribution to the press through the founding of and collaboration with local diocesan newspapers; the vigorous impetus given to Catholic Action; the restoration in the city of public processions for Corpus Christi, despite the prevailing anticlericalism; the churches’ restoration to their former splendor; and the preparation of the 1921 Dante centenary.
A profound piety distinguished his ministry, and his ascetical books addressed to the clergy remain witnesses to it even today, especially Sic orabitis (1st ed. Rome 1915, now in its 5th ed., there 1943, and trans. into French and German), Vos divi amicus (1st ed. Rome 1920; 2nd ed. there 1926; trans. into German), and Maria S.ma ai suoi sacerdoti (posthumous ed. Milan 1928; 3rd ed. there 1947). In gratitude, the clergy and people obtained that on 18 Dec. 1950 his remains should be laid to rest in the Cathedral.