VIALE PRELÀ, MICHELE. – Cardinal, born at Bastia (Corsica) on 29 September 1798, died at Bologna on 15 May 1860.
Ordained a priest in 1823, he was directed toward a diplomatic career and began his cursus as an auditor of the nunciature in Switzerland. After a lengthy period in the Secretariat of State, in 1838 he was assigned to Munich as internuncio, promoted to nuncio in 1841, elevated to the archiepiscopal dignity of Carthage, and finally transferred to Vienna in 1845. His outstanding qualities won him extensive sympathy and firm friendships in the Austrian capital, foremost among them that of Metternich. This proved invaluable to the Holy See in 1848, because V. post, almost in a personal capacity, even after the departure of the Austrian ambassador from Rome, and to avoid a complete rupture between the Vatican and the imperial government at the extremely difficult moment when a schism against the Pontiff was actually being threatened, since in Vienna he was regarded as enslaved to the Italian revolution. When the capital itself rose against Habsburg absolutism, the nuncio followed the imperial family to Innsbruck at the sovereign’s express invitation; from there he had to move to Soden, in order to follow the work of the Constituent Assembly of Frankfurt at close hand and report on it constantly to the Secretariat of State. In September, even before diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Empire had been officially reestablished, he was once again in Vienna, intent on making relations with Rome cordial once more.
But V. P.’s diplomatic masterpiece was the conclusion of the Concordat of 1855, the first idea of which he suggested to one of the most authoritative Austrian prelates, Giuseppe von Rauscher, as early as the spring of 1849, prompted by the promulgation of the Constitution of the Empire, granted by Franz Joseph on 4 March of that year. He thus took part in the episcopal conference presided over by the Cardinal of Schwarzenberg, from which there emerged the invitation to the sovereign to negotiate a concordat with the Holy See. The conference’s request was accepted by the government only in 1852, and negotiations began between V. P. and von Rauscher—who had meanwhile become archbishop of Vienna—at the beginning of 1853. The establishment of a concordat-based regime with Austria was of particular importance to the Holy See, because the aim was not only to reach an agreement that could serve as a model for negotiations with other governments after the revolutionary storm of 1848, but also to erase every trace of the Josephinist “jurisdictionalism” that had until then dominated the Habsburgs’ ecclesiastical policy. V. P. proved equal to the grave task and, in three years of arduous negotiations, achieved his goal, to the full satisfaction of Pius IX. Cardinal reserved in pectore in 1852 and proclaimed in 1853, he remained in Vienna as pronuncio until the signing of the Concordat (18 August 1855), which was ratified by the Pope on 3 November with the bull Deus humanae salutis auctor and proclaimed state law in Austria two days later. Having finally returned to Italy, V. P. was appointed archbishop of Bologna and immediately took possession of his see. It was insistently claimed that Cardinal Antonelli had assigned him there in order to remove the most capable papal diplomat from Rome and prevent the Pope from entrusting him with the Secretariat of State.
Although until then he had lived far from pastoral ministry, V. P. was, during the four years in which he governed the diocese, a truly exemplary prelate, devoting his greatest care to the formation of his clergy and the improvement of the faithful’s morals. Following the fall of papal rule in Emilia in 1859, he deliberately avoided all contact with the new political authorities, demonstrating himself to be a resolute defender of the rights of the Church.