*** Welcome to piglix ***

Guido Maria Conforti

Saint Archbishop
Guido Maria Conforti
Archbishop of Parma
Guido Maria Conforti.gif
Guido Maria Conforti in 1910
Church Roman Catholic Church
Archdiocese Parma
Metropolis Parma
See Parma
In office 12 December 1907 - 5 November 1931
Predecessor Francesco Magani
Successor Evasio Colli
Orders
Ordination 22 September 1888
by Giovanni Andrea Miotti
Consecration 11 June 1902
by Lucido Maria Parocchi
Personal details
Birth name Guido Maria Conforti
Born (1865-03-30)March 30, 1865
Casalora di Ravadese, Parma, Italy
Died November 5, 1931(1931-11-05) (aged 66)
Parma, Italy
Previous post
Motto In omnibus Christus ("Christ in all things")
Coat of arms
Sainthood
Feast day 5 November
Venerated in Roman Catholic Church
Beatified 17 March 1996
Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City
by Pope John Paul II
Canonized 23 October 2011
Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City
by Pope Benedict XVI
Attributes Archbishop's attire
Patronage Xaverian Missionary Fathers

Saint Guido Maria Conforti (3 March 1865 – 5 November 1931) was a Roman Catholic Italian archbishop and was the founder of the Xaverian Missionary Fathers on 3 December 1895. He was known to make frequent visits to his parishes and worked to support the religious education and religious involvement among the youth.

Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1996 and he was canonized in 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI.

Guido Maria Conforti was born in 1865 to Rinaldo Conforti and Antonia Adorni as the eighth of ten children.

He attended elementary school from 1872 and each day on his way to the school he would stop by the church of Santa Maria della Pace where he used to have conversations in his parish church with the crucified Jesus Christ. This was when his vocation manifested, and he later recalled: "I looked at Him and He looked at me and seemed to say so many things".

He enrolled in the seminary in Parma at the age of 17 in November 1876, and he began exposing himself to the works of Saint Francis Xavier which inspired in him a desire to be a missionary, but requests to be a missionary of the Society of Jesus or the Salesians of Saint John Bosco were denied. At the time, his rector was Andrea Carlo Ferrari, future cardinal and Blessed. Their relationship became a friendship.

He was finally ordained to the priesthood on 22 September 1888 in Parma. After his priestly ordination, Conforti served as a professor at the seminary where he studied and he later became the vice-rector of the seminary. He became the Vicar-General of Parma on 7 March 1896.

Conforti established the Xaverian Missionaries on 3 December 1895 and it received the approval of Pope Leo XIII. At this time, in 1899, he sent the first missionaries to China. Leo XIII appointed him as the Archbishop of Ravenna on 9 June 1902 following the death of Cardinal Agostino Gaetano Riboldi, and he later submitted his resignation to a reluctant Pope Pius X due to his ill health in October 1904. The next month, on 14 November, he was made both the Coadjutor Bishop of Parma and the Titular Archbishop of Stauropolis.


...
Wikipedia

...