Scalabrini, Giovanni Battista

SCALABRINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Bishop of Piacenza, founder of the Missionaries of St. Charles (Scalabrinians) and of the Society of St. Raphael, b. at Fino Mornasco (Como) on 8 July 1839, d. at Piacenza on 1 June 1905.

Ordained a priest on 30 May 1863, he was rector of the Seminary of Como from 1867 to 1870. Preconized bishop of Piacenza in 1875, in thirty years of episcopate he renewed the diocese with indefatigable apostolic work, distinguishing himself particularly for the diocesan Synods, eucharistic worship and the spread of the teaching of the catechism. His work went beyond the boundaries of the diocese and had national and international resonance especially for his clear and precise intervention in the Roman Question (v.) and for his many initiatives in the field of assistance to Italian emigrants.

In 1888 he published a pamphlet Intransigenti e transigenti, osservazioni di un vescovo italiano, which however did not bear his name. The publication, already approved by Leo XIII, who had read its proofs, caused much stir among the intransigents, who attacked it violently in the Osservatore cattolico, directed by Fr. Davide Albertario. He had clearly understood that the reconstruction of the Papal State in the form and extent it had had until 1870 was impossible. On the other hand he was perfectly aware that the pope could not and should not be in the condition of a subject. Having therefore asserted the possibility of a coexistence of the civil principality of the Pontiff with the unity of Italy, he hoped that the Italians, conscious of the strength of the Pontificate and persuaded of their own advantage, would spontaneously restore to the Pontiff as much of a civil principality as would make his condition tolerable.

Equally precise was Msgr. S.'s position on the question of the participation of Italian Catholics in political life. He did not hesitate to call the formula né eletti né elettori ruinous. In social matters he upheld a more equitable distribution of wealth and the elevation of the working and peasant masses. It was particularly to the emigrants of all Italy that he devoted indefatigable work, struck as he was by the wretched and humiliating conditions in which they found themselves (v. EMIGRANTI, EMIGRAZIONE).

The practical initiatives of Msgr. S. were, besides the founding of a religious Congregation of missionaries (Missionaries of St. Charles [v.]), to procure religious and moral assistance for emigrants, particularly in the places where they went to settle, the founding of a work for material and social assistance to emigrants, with the aim of removing them from shameful speculations (Society of St. Raphael); the establishment of offices in the ports of disembarkation for the placement of emigrants. The works founded by Msgr. S. arose amid countless difficulties and spread particularly in the two Americas, where he went in 1901 and in 1904, to visit them and increase them. The Ordinary Process for his beatification has already been deposited at the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

Although they do not constitute his principal merit, his writings should not be forgotten either: Il Concilio Vaticano (Como 1873, with 4 successive editions); Piccolo catechismo proposto agli asili d'infanzia (1873); Catechismo cattolico (1877); L'emigrazione italiana, considerazioni e proposte (1888); Dell'assistenza all'emigrazione nazionale e degli istituti che vi provvedono (1891); L'Italia all'estero (1899).

Giovanni Sofia