2.  Scalabrini to Ireland¹⁵

         Piacenza, March 12, 1889

Archbishop:

Your Excellency will forgive me for being so late in answering your kind and beautiful letter of December 21st, but the cause of this delay is independent of my will. Before writing to you I wanted to forward your letter to Propaganda and wait for a word from there to communicate to you. Now I can tell you that the Roman Congregation has read with the liveliest satisfaction these beautiful pages in which you demonstrate so well the importance of the initiative I have undertaken and where you so justly point out how from its success depends not only the spiritual future of many Italian Catholics cast across the seas by emigration, but also the success of the great work of evangelization entrusted to the zeal and wisdom of the American Episcopate. Men, in fact, are much too accustomed to draw logical and rigorous conclusions from the facts taking place around them. Today, more than ever the experimental system tends to prevail. It is natural, then, that your Protestant countrymen, seeing the religious ignorance and indifference of a great number, not to say of the majority, of Italians, may conclude that Christian life must be very weak in our country if so many of its children so easily lose their faith and abandon the practice of the most elementary duties of a Christian. Now, Italy is not only an exclusively Catholic country, but it also finds itself as the center of our holy Church and the residence of its august head. It follows, as Your Excellency points out so well, that Protestants might be inclined to believe Catholicism to be in a state of decline and that the

cause of that decline is no less than the lack of faith and virtue attributable to the guilty inactivity and negligence of their priests.

            Certainly we have to fight against these misconceptions, but we must above all do away with the main causes that engender them. The success and progress of the work I undertook will depend upon remedying the evils we deplore. Such evils are no less damaging to the propagation of the faith in America than to the preservation of the Christian traditions and principles of Catholicism among the millions of Italians living on the American Continent.

            For these reasons Propaganda has welcomed my work with the greatest benevolence and sees with satisfaction how well appreciated it is by the American Episcopate, particularly by you, one of the most enlightened and learned bishops in the New World.

            Propaganda was not alone in praising your attitude in regard to my Institute. The Holy Father Pope Leo XIII, to whom I showed your letter, was visibly pleased and spoke of you with the greatest benevolence. His Holiness keeps the best remembrance of you and appreciates, as you deserve, your eminent qualities and pastoral zeal.

            Now I have to thank you for your too kind expressions in my regard. Allow me to credit them to your benevolence towards my humble person and the Institute I direct. It is a great consolation and precious encouragement for me to see my ideas and projects approved by a prelate who so highly honors the American Episcopate with his virtue, his intelligence and his productive activity.

            The Institute I have founded is progressing and succeeding well. The requests from priests who desire to join the Congregation of the Missionaries of Piacenza are quite numerous and I am grateful to God. But difficulties are not lacking. Above all the financial difficulties hinder the growth of this beautiful project. Unfortunately, for the moment nothing can be expected from the Government, which is more than ever in conflict against the Vatican. In time the situation will change, I hope. In the meantime my Congregation will have to bear the consequences of this conflict. Catholic Italy sends generous donations. On my part I do all I possibly can to support the Institute I have founded, but the resources at my disposal are very limited. The revenues of the bishop, as of all bishops in Italy, are now reduced to less than modest proportions. The commercial and agricultural depression has in great part deprived owners, merchants and manufacturers of their profits so that despite their noble

generosity, Italian Catholics cannot help in totally defraying the expenses necessary to support the novitiate. For a serious and rapid growth of my Congregation it would be necessary that America also concur in the general expenses for the running of the novitiate.

            Such expenses are relatively high: the purchase of a building and a church for the Mother House of the Institute, furnishings, maintenance, support of missionaries, clothing, and trips of the priests, etc.¹⁶ Oh, if some generous person from among those who are in possession of great riches in America could come to the aid of this project destined to glorify God and save souls! It would be possible, then, to admit and prepare a larger number of priests for the evangelization of Italian emigrants.

            I share this idea with you. Make it a subject for serious and mature reflection. If you find it fair, communicate it to your confreres in the Episcopate in the United States and look for practical means to have it accepted by your Catholic countrymen. With the contributions of generous Americans I would be in a position to widen the field for the Institute of Piacenza and send across the Atlantic numerous cohorts of zealous missionaries to bring our lost Italians back to the saving paths of Christian practice.

            In spite of the worries caused me by this Institute to which I am committed and despite the pressing financial strictures, my trust in God is deep and unshakable. The Lord will help us, and this dear portion of his flock that crossed the seas to populate America shall not elude the shepherds of His Church. Far from swelling the ranks of those who despise the laws of Catholicism, from now on it will form the strength and honor of the young Church of America which is destined to become the glory and pride of the Successor of St. Peter and of our Holy Religion.

            Please accept, Archbishop, the expression of my high esteem and devotion in Our Lord,

+John Baptist Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza.