Saint Archbishop Guido Maria Conforti |
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Archbishop of Parma | |
Guido Maria Conforti in 1910
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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 |
Casalora di Ravadese, Parma, Italy |
March 30, 1865
Died | November 5, 1931 Parma, Italy |
(aged 66)
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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 |
Ordination history of Guido Maria Conforti | |
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Priestly ordination
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Ordained by | Giovani Andrea Miotti |
Date of ordination | 22 September 1888 |
Place of ordination | Parma, Italy |
Episcopal consecration
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Date of consecration | 11 June 1902 |
Bishops consecrated by Guido Maria Conforti as principal consecrator
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Luigi Calza, S.X. | 12 April 1912 |
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.