SCOTTON, BROTHERS. - All three were priests and polemicists who, from their residence at Breganze, conducted for over thirty years clamorous controversies in defense of the rights of the Holy See against the errors of the time.
JACOPO, b. at Bassano on Sept. 3, 1834, and d. at Venice on Jan. 17, 1909. Ordained a priest in 1857, a celebrated preacher, he left the pulpit when, together with his brothers, he turned to journalism (1890).
ANDREA, b. at Bassano on March 2, 1838, and d. at Breganze on Nov. 27, 1915. A priest in 1860, in 1863 he began teaching religion at the gymnasium of Vicenza. Subsequently he too devoted himself to preaching. In 1881 he was elected archpriest of Breganze (Vicenza). He has about forty publications, among which are 4 books of Apologetics.
GOTTARDO, b. at Bassano on June 23, 1845, and d. at Padua on March 9, 1916. Ordained a priest in 1869, he too was an applauded orator. Among his publications, a Life of Jesus Christ is noteworthy.
In 1890 the three brothers began editing the weekly La Riscossa per la Chiesa e per la patria, which began publication on 17 Aug. 1890 and ceased on 8 Jan. 1916. The thought of the S. brothers is collected and set forth in the short work: Il sincero cristiano e i suoi doveri verso Gesù Cristo, la Chiesa e lo Stato, a short work by the priest brothers Jacopo, Andrea, Gottardo S. (3rd ed., Breganze 1900). In the last years, in particular, they became champions of an integralism that they opposed to the supposed episcopalism of some of their adversaries; they fought bitterly against what they presented as modernism, but which was often nothing other than a healthy progress of studies and of research method.