5.

First Conference on Italian Emigration

(1891–1892)

The title, “First Conference on Italian Emigration,” has been given by his Missionaries to the text of Bishop Scalabrini’s talk delivered in Genoa in January, 1891, and repeated without substantive changes in many Italian cities to the end of 1892. The topic and the eloquence of the Bishop of Piacenza met with success. Cardinals and prominent lay persons asked for Scalabrini’s presence. Thus, the conference in Milan was promoted by Luisa Visconti Venosta, wife of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to whom in 1896 two of his close collaborators, with Scalabrini’s full participation and endorsement, would submit a detailed report with practical proposals for a new emigration law and for new regulations concerning the implementation of the law and the voyage and health conditions of the emigrants in 1896 (Giovanni Battista Volpe-Landi, Fr. Pietro Maldotti, Relazione all’E. del sig. Ministro degli Esteri. Piacenza: Tip. Marchesotti e Porta, 1896, pp. 36).

Addressing the emigration problem, Scalabrini aims at changing the perception of the Italian clergy as anti-patriotic and wrapped up in a selfish ascetical life oblivious of the social issues of the day. He points out that emigration is a major phenomenon of modern life, a law of nature and an inalienable right. Unfortunately it turns into an evil if it is not protected, as it is the bitter experience for Italy. Italian emigrants leave and settle overseas in conditions worse than those of the migrants of every other nationality. They are exploited, lacking in any religious care, and with little hope for the future. Helping people forced to emigrate is a civic and moral duty. Scalabrini refers to what he managed to accomplish to date through the foundation of a religious Congregation

and the promotion of missionary activities in the United States and in Brazil and concludes by asking support for the projects he has launched.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I come to you not for the purpose of creating a sensation – something I shun on principle and by nature – nor of following the trend, in itself praiseworthy, of entertaining people, while breaking the bread of knowledge in the way suggested by the Poet, that is, combining “the useful with the pleasurable.” The fact is that I don’t know how to reveal “the long sought after truth of science.” I am here simply to do my duty.

First, I have to express a word of thanks. I am indebted to so many generous people who, on my first appeal three or four years ago on behalf of the poor Italian emigrants, contributed to my project with a trust that touched me deeply and with a spontaneity that shows how strong and convincing is the voice of anyone in Italy who gets up to speak on behalf of religion and country.

As I give this report of what has been accomplished thus far, I also take this opportunity of renewing my appeal to the Italian clergy. I do so not to stimulate their apostolic zeal, because everyone knows that their zeal is burning, noble and generous, but to tell them that, far away from us, thousands upon thousands of people need their assistance and avidly beg for it. I want to renew my appeal to the lay people, to tell them that a vast field of action is open to them and to all people of good will. I want to tell both the clergy and the laity that the means needed for this project are extraordinary, but that the moral and material evils we must cope with are likewise extraordinary.

Gentlemen, I owe you this report for a special reason: Since we are dealing with a work of redemption that is not only religious but economic and civil as well, a work initiated by the clergy, I thought this report might be an indirect but clear answer to all those – and they are not a few today, who through ignorance or ill will or forgetfulness – accuse the clergy of locking themselves up in a selfish asceticism, of not caring for their country, of not taking any interest in the serious disease of our century, namely, the “social issue.”

I have the pleasure of pleading before your kind and scholarly audience a cause that needs all your good will. I am pleased to be able to speak here in Rome, in Rome where Christ is Roman, in this Rome rightly

called the mother of knowledge and civilization, the cradle of geniuses, the motherland of all people; in this Rome which, because of the See of Peter, holds sway over all Christian nations and embraces both hemispheres; in whose heart is forever burning the fire of that charity that makes one people out of many peoples, one family out of many families; in this Rome that first proclaimed and saw true freedom, equality and brotherhood become realities; in this Rome where great works are born and blessed, works that help procure not only the goods of our earthly homeland but also those of our heavenly one.