Giovanni Battista Scalabrini | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Piacenza | |
 | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Diocese | Piacenza |
| See | Piacenza |
| Appointed | 28 January 1876 |
| Installed | 13 February 1876 |
| Term ended | 1 June 1905 |
| Predecessor | Antonio Ranza |
| Successor | Giovanni Maria Pellizzari |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 30 May 1863 by Carlo Marzorati |
| Consecration | 30 January 1876 by Alessandro Franchi |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Giovanni Battista Scalabrini 8 July 1839 |
| Died | 1 June 1905 (aged 65) Piacenza, Kingdom of Italy |
| Buried | 5 June 1905 |
| Parents |
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| Motto | Video Dominum innixum scalæ (Latin for 'I see the Lord at the top of the stairway"') |
| Sainthood | |
| Feast day | 1 June |
| Venerated in | Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 9 November 1997 Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II |
| Canonized | 9 October 2022 Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope Francis |
| Attributes | Episcopal attire |
| Patronage |
|
Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, CS (8 July 1839 – 1 June 1905) was an Italian Catholic missionary who served as Bishop of Piacenza from 1876 until his death. He was the founder of both the Missionaries of Saint Charles (also known as the Scalabrinians) and the Mission Sisters of Saint Charles.[1]
Scalabrini's rise to the rank of bishop came at a rapid pace due to a series of lectures he gave on the First Vatican Council in 1872 and his staunch dedication to catechism, which led Pope Pius IX to dub him the "Apostle of the Catechism"; successive popes Leo XIII and Pius X held him in high esteem and both failed to convince him to accept appointments as head of an archdiocese or as a cardinal. He made five pastoral visits across his diocese which proved to be an exhaustive but effective mission of evangelization and his efforts at reforming seminaries and pastoral initiatives earned him praise even from the secular detractors who criticized him for his strict obedience to the pope.[2][3]
His tenure as bishop resulted in the establishment of the "Saint Raphael Association" dedicated to the care of Italian migrants. This solidified through the actions of his twin religious congregations and his visits to both Brazil and the United States, where he went to meet Italian immigrants.[4] He also dealt with the Paolo Miraglia-Gulotti schism that took place in his diocese and had known the faux-bishop after ordaining him in 1879. Scalabrini also held three important episcopal gatherings in his diocese that revitalized parish and diocesan practices and made his diocese the ground for the first-ever National Catechetical Congress in 1899; he was in the process of planning another before his death that was later celebrated in 1910.[5]
Scalabrini's holiness was renowned across the Italian peninsula and there were countless who attested to his saintliness in an ensuing canonization process; his first title at the outset of the process was that of a Servant of God that Pope Pius XI bestowed upon him on 30 June 1926 while the confirmation of his heroic virtue allowed for Pope John Paul II to title him as Venerable on 16 March 1987. John Paul II later beatified Scalabrini in Saint Peter's Square on 9 November 1997. Pope Francis canonized Scalabrini as a saint on 9 October 2022.
- ^ "Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini". Saints SQPN. 26 May 2015. Archived from the original on 10 October 2022. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
- ^ "Biographies of New Blesseds - 1997". EWTN. Archived from the original on 4 January 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
- ^ "The Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini". Scalabrinians: Asia-Pacific Province of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini. Archived from the original on 5 February 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
- ^ "The Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini". Missionaries of St. Charles. Archived from the original on 7 July 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
- ^ "Virtues of the Servant of God John Baptist Scalabrini" (PDF). Missionaries of San Carlo Scalabriani. 1985. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 February 2014. Retrieved 10 October 2022 – via scalabrini.org.