Don Bosco of the poor.

Artemis Zatti expanded the ranks of saints in the Salesian family. He dedicated his life to God in the service of the sick and the poor. In Argentina, where he worked, he was called Don Bosco of the poor.

He was born on October 12, 1880, in Italy in a poor peasant family. Already at the age of nine, he had to work. The ongoing peasant crisis, high unemployment, and poverty in Italy forced the Zattis to go to relatives in Argentina. When Artemide was 17 years old, the Zatti family left, joining the many Italian emigrants in Argentina.

Many anticlerical were living in the town where they settled, but the Zattis went to church every Sunday. Don Bosco’s Salesians were in charge of the administration of the church. Artemis helped the administrator of the parish to maintain order in the church, and when he had free time, he also accompanied him on visits to the sick.

After some time he decided to join the Salesians. Young boys were preparing for religious life near Buenos Aires. There was a young Salesian who fell ill with tuberculosis. Artemis took care of him. However, the young man died. Not long after, Artemis also fell ill. The superior sent him to the town of Viedma, where the Salesians had a hospital and a pharmacy.

Finally, he was cured and at the age of 2,8, he took lifelong vows and became a Salesian coadjutor, that is, he did not become a priest but served as a brother. He worked in a hospital and in a pharmacy, where they kept their accounting – the rich paid twice as much for the medicine, and the poor paid nothing.

In the hospital, he cared for the sick with great love, in whom he saw Jesus himself. He often turned to the nurse working in the laundry and said, “Do you have clothes for the twelve-year-old Jesus?”

Until the end of his life, he tirelessly continued his mission among the sick. They loved him, and even the doctors respected him. “When I’m with Zatti, I can’t help but believe in God,” said one self-proclaimed atheist doctor. Artemis treated everyone with the same love he would have treated Jesus himself.

Source: Vatican news.VA

Pope Francis himself gave testimony to the sanctity of Artemis Zatti. During his time as Provincial of the Jesuits in Argentina, he came across his biography. “I was attracted to this complete character of the coadjutor. At that moment I felt that I had to ask the Lord to send us vocations of coadjutors through his intercession. I prepared novenas and asked the novices to do them,” writes the Pope in a letter to Salesian Don Cayetano Bruno in Buenos Aires.

In the following years, 16 coadjutors joined the order. “I am convinced of the intercession of Blessed Artemidos Zatti in this matter, because, given the number, it is a rare case in the Society of Jesus. I know how much we prayed when we invoked him as an intercessor,” the Pope continued in the letter.

Artemis died at the age of 71. He had a pancreatic tumor. When they asked him how he was, how he was doing, he used to answer: “Up.” And he looked towards the sky.

That’s how he lived his whole life, focused on Jesus, whom he saw in everyone he met.

Apostle of migrants

The second canonized is Giovanni Battista Scalabrini. He served as a bishop in Piacenza, Italy, and is the founder of the male and female Congregation of Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo, whose special charism is service to migrants.

He was born in the northern Italian province of Como on July 8, 1839, as the third of eight children in a modest and religious family. He was an excellent student. He wrote a poem in praise of the life of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, he also admired Saint Joseph, Francis de Sales, and Charles Borromeo. He entered the seminary at the age of 18, and six years later he was ordained as a priest.

His great desire was to go on missions, but he was not granted this. He began his apostolate as a teacher and then rector of a minor seminary in Como. He taught the Greek language and history.

He was later appointed parish priest in Como, where he was very sensitive to the social issues of the people. He treated patients with cholera. Scalabrini also perceived the importance of the religious education of the youngest, he wrote the Small Catechism for kindergartens.

Source: Vatican news.VA

At the age of only 36, Pope Pius IX. appointed as bishop in Piacenza. In his pastoral program, closeness to people, attention to the clergy, teaching the Gospel, and love for those who need it most were always a priority.

He devoted himself to the formation of priests and young seminarians, founded schools of Christian doctrine, and published a magazine. He also established an Institute for the deaf and dumb and provided religious and social assistance to seasonal migrants employed in rice cultivation in Piedmont and Lombardy.

Deeply affected by the difficult situation of his believers, who were forced to leave for work in America, he founded the Missionary Congregation of St. Charles Borromeo for spiritual and material assistance to migrants. Later, he founded the lay association St. Raphael and joined the missionaries of the missionary sisters of St. Charles Borromeo.

At the beginning of the 20th century, he reached the United States and Brazil to visit the missions of his “Scalabrini” brothers. After returning, he fell ill and died on June 1, 1905.

The prefect of the Disaster for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, said of the new saints: “Their testimony brings the attention of the faithful in Christ back to the topic of migrants who, as the Pope has said several times, if they are included, can help to breathe the air of diversity that restores unity.” They can nourish the face of Catholicity, they can bear witness to the apostolate of the church, they can create stories about holiness.”