INTRODUCTION

On the occasion of the centennial of the founding of the Missionary Fathers and Brothers of St. Charles, the General Administrations of the Missionary Fathers and Brothers of St. Charles and of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles have undertaken to jointly publish an anthology of the writings of their Founder, Bishop John Baptist Scalabrini (1839-1905).

The collected writings of Bishop Scalabrini fill some 7000 pages, gathered into fourteen thick volumes.  In culling from these pages the passages found in the present anthology, the editors observed several criteria.  They wanted:

1)     to put into the hands of the religious men and women who look to Scalabrini as their founder the key notions for a better understanding of his charism in all its various aspects;

2)     to give the admirers of the Servant of God, particularly those who have the cause of the migrants at heart, the chance to read the more important pages of his message;

3)     to help people understand Scalabrini's life as Servant of God, priest and bishop of the Church, evangelizer, man of social and cultural action, and Apostle of the Migrants, through direct knowledge of the ideas and principles that guided him.

Around these five themes, in fact, we have collected these pages of the anthology:

                     I              -           Man of God and for God

                     II             -           Man of the Church and for the Church

                     III            -           Man of the Word and for the Word

                     IV            -           Man of the people and for the people

                     V             -           Man of the migrants and for the migrants

In other words, Scalabrini is a man who was all for God because he belonged wholly to God; a man who worked and sacrificed himself for the Church because he felt he was a living part of the Church; a

man who devoted himself to the Word of God because he let himself be molded by it; a man who poured himself out for his fellow human beings because he was gifted with a rich humanity; a man who consecrated himself to the migrants because he made their cause his own.

There are five sections in the book.  At the beginning of each section, we offer some guidelines for interpreting that section and, at the beginning of each subdivision, a brief summary showing the logical sequence of the passages to follow.

In putting together this anthology, we tried not to exceed the dimensions of an easy-to-handle book.  Passages not indispensable to the understanding of the text were left out.  We indicate this fact by the use of the ellipsis between parenthesis.  The bibliographical apparatus is very simple.  The explanatory notes, too, are kept to a minimum.  Anyone wishing to better understand the context should read the biography of Mario Francesconi, Giovanni Battista Scalabrini vescovo di Piacenza e degli emigrati.

Following are the more common abbreviations:

AGS = Archivio Generale Scalabriniano (Via Calandrelli 11, Roma)

ASV-SS    Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Segreteria di Stato

Biografia M. FRANCESCONI, Giovanni Battista Scalabrini vescovo di Piacenza e degli emigrati (Città Nuova Editrice, Rome, 1985)

Carteggio S.B. = Carteggio Scalabrini Bonomelli (1868-1905), edited by C. MARCORA (Editrice Studium, Rome, 1983)

Id. = Idem (repetition of the preceding citation)

Ibid. = Ibidem (the same bibliographical or archival reference)

F. = FOLIO