Pietro Casani

Pietro Casani (8 September 1570 – 17 October 1647) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Piarists. He became an assistant and a close personal friend of Giuseppe Calasanz. Casani had assumed the religious name of "Pietro della Natività di Maria" upon his solemn profession and had once been part of the Congregazione della Beata Vergine Maria that Giovanni Leonardi founded.

Casani served in numerous roles of leadership within the Piarists due to being a close assistant to Calasanz and travelled across the Italian peninsula for visitations of various houses while living in Rome and Naples as part of his duties. He was an advocate for the religious of the order being poor and moved to the Piarists from Leonardi's for that exact reason.

His beatification cause commenced on 22 March 1922 - under Pope Pius XI and he became titled as a Servant of God: the first stage in the sainthood process. He was made Venerable in 1991 and Pope John Paul II beatified him in Saint Peter's Square on 1 October 1995.

Life

Childhood and education Pietro Casani was born in Lucca on 8 September 1570 as the sole child to Gaspare Casani (d. 1626) and Elisabetta Drago (d. 1591) - both were from old noble families.

On 22 March 1922 - under Pope Pius XI - the cause opened on an official level and Casani was granted the title of Servant of God: the first official stage in the process.

An apostolic process was held not long after this following a period of inaction and the process spanned from 1930 until such time when documents became lost; these documents for the cause were relocated in 1964 and revitalized the process. The previous processes were validated by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 12 January 1990 which allowed for the postulation to submit the Positio to the C.C.S. that same year.

On 22 January 1991 he was proclaimed to be Venerable after Pope John Paul II confirmed that the late priest had lived a model Christian life of heroic virtue. The pontiff also approved a miracle attributed to him on 15 December 1994 and beatified Casani in Saint Peter's Square on 1 October 1995.

The miracle in question - in Szeged in Hungary - was the cure of a woman in hospital who was cured due to kissing an image of Casani that a Piarist priest gave her. It was investigated and was later re-examined for his beatification.

The current postulator that is assigned to the cause is the Piarist Mateusz Pindelski.