Donato Sbarretti
Donato Raffaele Cardinal Sbarretti Tazza (born 10 November 1856 in Monte November/12 Franco, . † April 1, 1939 in Rome) was a diplomat of the Holy See and Cardinal.
Life
The son of a noble family studied at the Seminary of Spoleto and then at the Pontifical Seminary of St. Apollinaris, where he earned a doctorate in theology and both rights. His uncle, Enea Sbarretti, was appointed in 1877 to the Cardinal, two years before Sbarretti Tazza was ordained at the age of 22 years as a priest. Either way, his career advancement can not be described as nepotism, since the long-time patrons of his uncle, Pius IX. , Had died before he was ordained a priest and his uncle died in 1884, when his career was barely underway.
The auxiliary bishop in Rome, Cardinal Raffaele Monaco La Valletta, consecrated him on 12 April 1879 in Rome as a priest. After his studies in Rome he was also secretary of the Congregation for religious propaganda and did pastoral ministry in Spoleto. In 1885 he was appointed professor of moral theology and canon law at the Pontifical Urban University. He was a member of the State Secretariat and in 1893 he got his first diplomatic post as an auditor in the Apostolic Delegation in the USA. The Pope appointed him on 11 November 1895, supernumerary secret chamberlain.
His next offices were results of the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Leo XIII. appointed him on January 9, 1900 as Bishop of San Cristobal de la Habana. He received his episcopal consecration of the Apostolic Delegate in the United States of America, Sebastiano Martinelli OESA, on 4 February of the same year in Washington, DC; Co-consecrators were Alfred Allen Paul Curtis, Auxiliary Bishop of Baltimore, and John James Joseph Monaghan, Bishop of Wilmington. As a motto he chose Respice StellaM voca Mariam.
On September 16, 1901 he was raised to the Titular Archbishop of Gortyna and appointed associate Apostolic Delegate to the Philippines, the former U.S. colony to negotiate the issue with the Philippine Independent Church. The community was founded by a schism from the Catholic Church that followed the aspirations for independence in the political sphere. However, the U.S. government wanted with their own negotiations to solve this problem to the Holy See under William Howard Taft and declared him persona non grata, so he could not travel to Manila therefore. For Titularerzbistum Ephesus, he moved on 16 December of the same year.
On December 26, 1902, he was appointed apostolic delegate to Canada and additionally early 1910 apostolic delegate in Newfoundland. He made a long trip to Europe from September 1906 to June 1907. After traveling to Rome on April 7, 1910 to present the decrees of the First Plenary Council of Quebec, he never returned to Canada. His retirement he declared on November 3, 1910, after he had called Pius X on October 29, 1910 Secretary of the Congregation for Religious.
Benedict XV. took him on 4 December 1916 as a cardinal priest in the Sacred College, and he received on 7 December of the same year the titular church of San Silvestro in Capite. On 17 December 1928, elevated to Cardinal Bishop of Sabina e Poggio Mirteto. He participated in the conclaves in 1922 and 1939, the Pius XI. and Pius XII. selected.
He suffered a heart attack on the night of April 1, 1939, and his servant found him dead in bed in the morning when he tried to wake him up. The son of the landowner Agostino Flavio Donato Sbarretti and his wife Caterina Tazza was temporarily buried in the cemetery church in Monte Franco and later transferred according to his will in the parish church of his native city.