Giovanni Battista Scalabrini

Giovanni Battista Scalabrini ( born July 8, 1839 in Fino Mornasco, Como Province, Italy, † June 1, 1905 in Piacenza) was bishop of Piacenza and the founder of Italian emigrants pastoral care.

Life

He was born as the third of eight children of the wine merchant Luigi Scalabrini and his wife Colomba Trombetta and received in Como his school and seminary training. On 30 May 1863 he was ordained priest. First, he was a teacher at the seminary in San Abondio Como worked in 1868 became its rector and was then used as a parish priest in Como. On December 13, 1875, he was named by Pope Pius IX. Bishop of Piacenza.

As bishop, he worked intensively with questions of pastoral care. So he visited the parishes of his diocese during his episcopate five times during the regular pastoral visits. In many pastoral letters, and on several diocesan synods, he dealt with the pressing social problems. He was attentive to the problems of the emigrants. He worked intensively with the new social, moral and religious issues that brought the emigration of tens of thousands of Italians to America in those years with him. 1887, therefore, he founded the Congregation dei Missionari per gli of emigration italiani, the " Congregation of the Missionaries of the emigrant Italians," the Scalabriniani " that lead to the support of the Italian emigrants to overseas and provided there for the creation and management of Italian parishes. 1888 drove a first group of missionaries in the United States and Brazil. 1895 called Scalabrini also a women's branch of the Congregation into life, the Congregation of the Suore mission aria di San Carlo Borromeo per gli of emigration (the " Congregation of the missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo for the emigrants ' or Scalabriniane ). 1901 he himself traveled to North America and reported Pope Leo XIII. immediately after his return from his experiences. 1904 was followed by another trip to several South American countries. important for the development of his theological and pastoral program was his friendship with Geremia Bonomelli (1831-1914, since 1871 bishop of Cremona ), with whom he was in close contact since 1868.

His tomb is in the cathedral of Piacenza. The process of beatification was introduced in 1936; In 1997 he was beatified by Pope John Paul II. He is considered the patron saint of emigrants.