• May 5, 1936: Bishop Ersilio Menzani introduces the Cause of Beatification in Piacenza.
• 1936 – 1940: the diocesan process is held in in Piacenza.
• May 30, 1940: the apostolic process opens in Rome.
• September 9, 1970: the censors’ votes on the writings are published.
• On May 11, 1982: Pope John Paul II ratifies the decree for the introduction of the cause.
• November 25, 1986: the theologian consultors give favorable vote.
• February 17, 1987: the ordinary Congregation of Cardinals and Bishops approves the affirmative response on the practice of heroic virtues.
• March 16, 1987: the Pope declared solemnly: “It is evident that the Servant of God, John Baptist Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza, has practiced the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity toward God and neighbor and the cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude as well as all other related virtues.”
• December 23, 1994 – June 5, 1995: the diocesan process on the alleged miracle attributed to Bishop Scalabrini is conducted.
• 1995: the process to verify the alleged miracle begins in Rome.
• December 5, 1996: the commission’s medical experts express a favorable vote.
• March 21, 1997: the theologian consultors offer a unanimous favorable vote on the alleged miracle attributed to the intercession of Bishop Scalabrini.
• June 3, 1997: the congregation of Cardinals gives a unanimous vote and declares: “The healing of Sister Paolina has no natural explanation and it is to attributable to the intercession of the Venerable John Baptist Scalabrini”.
• July 4, 1997: the decree of the Pope.
• November 9, 1997: ceremony of the beatification of Bishop John Baptist Scalabrini is held in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
• May 21, 2022: Pope Francis, accepting the opinion of the cardinals
  gathered in assembly on May 17, has decreed that Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini will be venerated as a saint in the Church. The canonization ceremony will take place on a date to be established by the consistory to be convened by Pope Francis.

Actor of the cause of canonization

Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles – Scalabrinians

• Via Francesco Torta, 14 – 29100, Piacenza
  Tel. (0523) 34.86.11
  Fax (0523) 34.86.41
• Via Ulisse Seni 2 – 00153 Roma – Italia

Postulators

• Fr. Graziano Battistella, postulator
• Fr. Mario Toffari, vice-postulator (Area Europa-Africa)
• Sr. Lina Guzzo, vice-postulator (Area Europa-Africa)
• Fr. Fernando Cuevas, vice-postulator (Area Nord America
• Fr. Delmar Silva Páez , vice-postulator (Area Australia-Asia)
• Fr. Rafael Adriano Da Silva, vice-postulator (Area Sud America)

Canonization

On May 21, 2022, Pope Francis, accepting the opinion of the cardinals
gathered in assembly on May 17, has decreed that Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini will be venerated as a saint in the Church. The canonization ceremony will take place on a date to be established by the consistory to be convened by Pope Francis.

I

Oh Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini,

we entrust to you our prayers as pilgrims

journeying toward our homeland.

Through your intercession,

we ask the Most Holy Trinity:

To bless all local churches

that they may witness their Catholic identity

by practicing hospitality;

To comfort migrants and refugees

on their journey to freedom

so that they may feel members of the family of God;

To inspire in our society

the understanding of mutual acceptance

and sharing along with the courage to create open communities;

To guide the religious and lay missionaries,

whom you have called to be companions to the migrants,

to live in mutual love and fraternity.

You who have been a missionary of the Word,

a man of the Most Holy Eucharist and of the Church,

a minister of charity and communion,

and a most devoted son of Mary,

inspire all of us to imitate your example of holiness,

so as to bring about God’s plan for each one of us

and obtain the graces which we trustingly manifest to your fatherly heart.

Amen

II

Oh Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini, Apostle of the Catechism and Father to the migrants, you always listened to the cry of the poor.

You taught the children to believe in God’s love for them. You opened the doors of opportunity for the deaf and you gave protection to the rice workers.

You listened to the cry of the migrants and nourished their faith, you sought to assure them protection and respect, you fought for their rights, and walked in their company.

As Bishop, you led the faithful of your diocese to God in communion with the universal Church and in acceptance of the Cross.

You inspired your religious and lay missionaries to imitate your apostolic fervor in serving the migrants.

On the journey of life, we are often disoriented and separated. Help us to imitate you in seeking Christ in the Eucharist and in serving Him in our brothers and sisters. Give us a welcoming heart toward those who come to our door and make us ever ready to answer when the Lord calls upon us.

Through your intercession and the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom you loved with a love of a son, may God make us open to dialogue, untiring in working for brotherhood and courageous in overcoming borders, so as to build a community of people, where strangers are brothers and sisters and where migrants are always at home.

Amen Amen

III

Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini, you were chosen by God to become the faithful servant and guide to your people, the Apostle of the Catechism and the Father to the Migrants.

Guide us in our pilgrimage of life with the wisdom of your faith and the strength of your courage. May we face our daily struggles with the knowledge that in all that happens God’s providential love is at work in us.

Lead us to fullness of life in Jesus, to harmony with one another and to openness and welcome toward our migrant brothers and sisters.

Listen to our prayer and entrust it to Jesus through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Extend your protection to all who live and work in foreign lands, to their families at home. Assist us in sorrow and distress, so that, free from fear and with a joyful heart, we may give glory to God through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

IV

To Blessed Scalabrini, Bishop and Founder

Oh Father,

You understand why we now with confidence offer our prayer to God and to you, as we recall the special devotion you had for the Saints, who have been our Fathers in the faith, and with how much passion you were teaching it to us.

We, therefore, praise the Creator:

for your life, which the Church declared to be heroic in its virtues;

and for what you showed us in in your life:

for your pastoral journeys on the Appenine mountains in Italy, and, as Pastor et Nauta, in the Americas;

for your clear and heartfelt sermons to the people, for your social writings,

for your innumerable letters, which make of you also a man of communications;

for the zeal which was burning so much as to make you say that you were ready to kneel before the world, to ask it as a favor to do it some good.

We thank God most of all also for your charity:

which makes you run to help the victims the cholera without worrying about your own life;

which makes you sell everything, even your horses and the golden chalice of the Pope, to offer soups during the famine;

which gives hearing to the deaf and speech to the mute;

which offers the migrants the comfort of faith and the pleasant memory of the homeland.

We are grateful to know that, during your life on earth, you too have petitioned the Pope for the beatification of many saints: John Baptist De La Salle, Perboyre, Rita of Cascia, Cafasso, Gianelli, and many others; and that, as motivation, have also reiterated that the life of a saint is meant to be a laboratory of charity.

We would like that the motivation you offered for the canonization of Blessed Antonio Maria Zacccaria be true for us as well, that: “His memory lives on in honor and is cultivated by the Religious of the Congregation he founded, who follow diligently and valiantly the footsteps of their Venerated Father.”

To your missionaries sons and daughters especially, grant:

the grace to feel every day that predilection you spoke of exultantly to them in your 1892 Letter, when you stated that, in the apostolic vocation, more important than the one is called, is the one who calls: Jesus, the Lord of the universe;

your ability to appreciate the value of every soul which has cost the most precious blood of Christ;

your spirit of prayer which liberates and quickens the soul, carrying it to the top of the stairway, where God is, and then down to the least of the brothers and sisters who need God.

We also ask of you:

your ability to become bridges;

a spirit of openness so that nothing that is human is foreign to us;

to be attentive to ideas of people, who are even capable of fashioning God’s own history, and, therefore, your attitude toward change;

the ability to read the signs of the time, even the most dramatic and negative, which, while challenging your hope in the history of salvation, still they had you repeat often: man is restless, but God leads him;

that clear vision of yours, which is not a point of departure but always one of arrival, and which is the result of trial and error and of sacrifice, evidence of your openness, and the final reward for your faithfulness.

Teach us that which, through your daily endeavors, you learn so well so as to appear natural in you:

the patience of the fisherman,

the constancy of the pilgrim

and the hope of the migrant.

We do not pretend to reach up to your stature, but we strive to measure up, as best we can, to ourselves, to be, like you, fully human, all things to all people.

Oh, how much we would like it to be true, for us (and now even for you!), what you wrote for the canonization of John Baptist de la Salle; that “not only did he dedicate himself by word and example to his mission during his lifetime, with inexhaustible fervor, with the greatest humility and praiseworthy laboriousness, but, even after having entered the Kingdom of Heaven – as if still living among us, through his sons, whom he gathered around himself – he continues the divine work.”

Amen! Amen!