A native of the Italian region of Lombardy, Scalabrini was ordained a priest in 1863 and made bishop of Piacenza at the age of 36. As bishop, he founded the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo (also known as the Scalabrinians). He also created the lay “Saint Raphael Association,” which, like the order he founded, was dedicated to offering pastoral care to immigrants at the ports where they embarked and disembarked at the turn of the 20th century.
In 1901, he visited his missionaries in the United States and was received at the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt.
Scalabrini was convinced of the need for institutions to accompany the journey of migrants in all its stages, taking care not to abruptly sever cultural ties with the homeland and maintaining the mother tongue as a bond of unity with the other compatriots.
After returning from visiting his missionaries in Brazil, Scalabrini died in 1905 on June 1—a date that the Church now marks as his feast day.
The saint is also remembered for founding a diocesan newspaper, for caring for the poor and elderly, for being a promoter of Eucharistic adoration, and a protector of correct liturgical chant.
Scalabrini wrote: “Precisely because of the migrations imposed by persecutions, the Church pressed beyond the confines of Jerusalem and of Israel, and became ‘catholic’; thanks to the migrations of our own days, the Church will be an instrument of peace and of communion among peoples.”
St. Artemide Zatti (1880-1951)
Pope Francis praised Zatti as “a living example of gratitude.” He highlighted in his homily how the immigrant nurse thanked God by “taking upon himself the wounds of others.”
“Cured of tuberculosis, he devoted his entire life to serving others, caring for the infirm with tender love. He was said to have carried on his shoulders the dead body of one of his patients,” the pope said.
Zatti was born into extreme poverty in Italy in 1880. At the age of nine, he was already helping his parents by working as a farmhand before his family emigrated to Argentina.
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As a young man, Zatti attended a Catholic parish run by the Salesians of Don Bosco in the Argentine town of Bahía Blanca. At 20 years old, he joined the candidacy to become a Salesian priest.
While living in the Salesian community, Zatti contracted tuberculosis after caring for a young priest with the disease.
One of the Salesian priests, a nurse, suggested that Zatti pray for the intercession of Mary Help of Christians, making a promise that if he was healed, he would devote his life to helping the sick.
Zatti willingly made the promise and was healed of the tuberculosis. He later said about the event: “I believed, I promised, I was healed.”
The young Italian immigrant gave up the idea of the priesthood and became a Salesian Coadjutor Brother, a lay role so that he could devote himself to service in the medical field.
In 1915, at the age of 35, Zatti became the director of the Salesian-run hospital in Viedma, a city in central Argentina. Two years later he also became the manager of the pharmacy and received his license as a professional nurse.
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