On October 9 of this year, the canonization of Giovanni Battista Scalabrini and Artemide Zatti will take place. This date was announced by Pope Francis in the Vatican Basilica during the Consistory for the vote on certain causes of beatification.
These two canonizations will provide support and be politically useful to a large part of the clergy, including the pope, with the aim of deriving ideological benefit. Immigration is at the heart and on the lips of all homilies, debates, and clergy meetings.
Let us cut the grass from under their feet and look in more detail at what is meant when this pro-immigration clergy enthrones our blesseds Scalabrini and Zatti as "Apostles of Migrants".
Giovanni Battista Scalabrini was born on July 8, 1839, in Fino Mornasco, Italy. He is the founder of the Missionaries of Saint Charles (also known as the Scalabrinians) and the Sisters of the Mission of Saint Charles.
He climbed the hierarchical ranks extremely quickly, being appointed Bishop of Piacenza only 13 years after his ordination as a Catholic priest.
This was largely thanks to his series of lectures given during the First Vatican Council in 1872 and his unwavering dedication to catechesis, which led Pope Pius IX to nickname him the "Apostle of Catechesis".
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 carried out five pastoral visits across his diocese, which proved to be an exhaustive but effective evangelizing mission. His efforts to reform seminaries and pastoral initiatives earned him praise even from lay detractors who criticized him for his strict obedience to the pope.
His tenure as bishop led to the creation of the "Saint Raphael Association" dedicated to the care of Italian migrants. This was solidified through the actions of his twin religious congregations and his visits to Brazil and the United States, where he went to meet Italian immigrants.
Scalabrini's holiness was renowned throughout the Italian peninsula, and countless people attested to his sanctity during the subsequent canonization process. His first title at the beginning of the process was Servant of God, which Pope Pius XI bestowed on him on June 30, 1926. The confirmation of his heroic virtue allowed Pope John Paul II to name him Venerable on March 16, 1987. John Paul II then beatified Scalabrini in St. Peter's Square on November 9, 1997.
He sent the Missionaries of Saint Charles, Frances Xavier Cabrini, and six others to go to the United States of America to care for orphans and sick Italian migrants.
After the tragic events of the Labor Day festival in 1898, he wrote "Socialism and the Action of the Clergy," which contained his social thought and his adherence to Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum," which he considered an innovative social document.
In 1892, he founded the "Sant'Opilio Opera" for poor clerics, and in 1894 began the process of restoring the diocesan cathedral, which was completed in 1902 but inaugurated on June 16, 1901. In 1903, he founded the "Rice Workers Institute" for unionized aid to over 170,000 rice field workers.
Regarding this future Saint, it is not a question, as the Pope and clergy would have one believe, of an Apostle of Migrants in a universalist sense. He worked to help migrants, yes, but Italian migrants—his brothers—who had gone to America or Brazil.
At no point was it about bringing the Muslim world or any other foreign culture into his country. As always, our missionaries went to help migrants, the poor, and the humiliated in their own lands.
The pro-immigration frenzy is very recent, and in France, it was never a question of this in history. The invention of the republic's narrative that our country "has always been a land of welcome and a mix of immigrants" is false.
Regarding the future Saint Artemide Zatti, he was born in Reggio Emilia, Italy, on October 12, 1880. His family, believing the economic climate at that time was not favorable, decided to move to Argentina.
He met Father Carlos Cavalli around this time, who encouraged him to become a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco; he entered on April 19, 1900, to begin his novitiate as a lay member. He made his first profession on January 11, 1908, and his solemn profession as a lay member on February 11, 1911.
Zatti frequently attended Mass and learned the Spanish language to assimilate into his new homeland. Thus, this future Saint, newly arrived in Argentina, adopted its language and culture.
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His routine included morning Mass and meditation, as well as a bicycle ride to visit the sick. He also entertained the sick with a game of bocce ball and from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM visited hospitalized patients.
He read spiritual texts at night after work. Zatti's work schedule extended from 4:30 AM to 11:00 PM. He also obtained a nursing diploma. One doctor said, "I have believed in God since I met Mr. Zatti".
He obtained Argentine citizenship in 1914.