SCURATI, GIACOMO. - Second superior general of the Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan, b. in Milan on 25 Feb. 1831, d. there on 31 May 1901.
A priest in 1854 and a professor in the archiepis-
(phot. Murubbi)
he entered the Foreign Missions the following year and set out for Hong Kong in 1859, working there only a short time, because he was chosen as secretary of the Visitor of the Chinese missions, Msgr. Celestino Spelta. Having returned home, due to illness, at the end of 1862, he was professor of theology and French in his own Seminary of the missions, and, upon the death of Msgr. Giuseppe Marinoni (v.), in 1891, he succeeded him in the direction of the Institute, which he governed until his death, with a keen sense of responsibility.
A good connoisseur of the theological sciences and nourished by profound ascetical doctrine (he was a member of the Theological Faculty of Milan), he has to his credit a very rich output in these two fields, not counting the many biographies of deceased missionaries of his Institute. Among his works, a certain resonance was had by the book Se sia lecito abbruciare i morti (Milan 1885), which influenced, if perhaps it did not determine - as it seems - the condemnation of cremation by the Holy Office (19 May 1886). He was among the first editors of the Osservatore cattolico and for many years edited the Italian edition of the Annales de l'oeuvre de la Propagation de la Foi, on behalf of the Opera itself. In 1872 he began the publication of Le Missioni cattoliche, a fortnightly of the same Opera, supplementing its text with the printing of reports of missionaries of his own and of other institutes. In 1874 he founded the S. Giuseppe printing house. S. also had good aptitudes for poetry, music and especially painting, of which he left excellent examples in the illustration of the recollections of his journey across China, made as secretary of Spelta, and which he published anonymously in Le Missioni cattoliche from 1874 to 1877. In 1892, in homage to the memory of his predecessor, he published his writings. He had also planned a history of the missions of his Institute, but did not have the time to carry it out.
Bibliography2 works
Giovanni B. Tragella