Giovanni Battista Scalabrini

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.

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, but 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.

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. 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.

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 him as a saint on 9 October 2022.

Life Education and priesthood Giovanni Battista Scalabrini was born in Fino Mornasco as the third of eight children to Luigi Scalabrini and Colomba Trombetta; he was baptized just hours later at the parish church of Fino.

Scalabrini received word from Pope Pius IX that he was to become the next Bishop of Piacenza at the beginning of 1876 despite the fact that the pope made up his mind in December 1875; Pius IX had once dubbed him the "Apostle of the Catechism" on 7 June 1877 and sent him a golden chalice on 6 February 1878 (just a day before the pope died). It was also Giovanni Bosco who advised Pius IX to appoint Scalabrini as a bishop. Scalabrini received his episcopal consecration from Cardinal Alessandro Franchi in Rome in the chapel of the Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide in Piazza di Spagna and was installed in his new see a couple of weeks after this.

There were also three rogatorial processes with two in Como with the first from 23 November to 10 December 1947 and the second opening on 4 May 1940; a third was held from 26 September 1939 at Camerino. A total of 57 witnesses were questioned: 3 were co-witnesses, the postulation summoned 39 and 15 were called "ex officio". The theologians collated all of his spiritual writings and declared that these writings were not in contradiction of the magisterium therefore approved them on 18 February 1972. But these writings were approved on 30 July and 24 October 1941 though made public on 9 September 1970 and made official in 1972. The formal introduction to the cause came under Pope John Paul II on 11 May 1982 and Scalabrini was titled as a Servant of God; the apostolic process was dispensed with. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints validated the process on 20 December 1985 and received the Positio dossier from the postulation in 1986 before theologians approved the dossier on 25 November 1986 as did the C.C.S. on 17 February 1987. The confirmation of his heroic virtue on 16 March 1987 allowed for John Paul II to title him as Venerable.

The process for a miracle attributed to him spanned from 23 December 1994 to 5 June 1995 in the diocese of its origin and it received C.C.S. validation on 13 October 1995 before a panel of medical experts approved the healing to be a miracle on 5 December 1996. Theologians likewise approved it on 21 March 1997 as did the cardinal and bishop members of the C.C.S. on 3 June 1997. John Paul II approved this on 7 July 1997 and beatified Scalabrini on 9 November 1997 in Saint Peter's Square. The then-Piacenza bishop Luciano Monari was at the beatification.

Pope Leo XIV links Scalabrini with Saint Frances Cabrini in his commendation of these "two great saints [who] distinguished themselves in the pastoral care of migrants.