Born in Castelletto Scazzoso (Alessandria) on 27 September 1867.
Died in Rome on November 26, 1927.
After completing his first studies in the seminary of Vigevano, in 1889 he moved to Rome to attend the Mastai College for the missions of China. Ordained a priest on May 21, 1890 by Cardinal Lucido Maria Parocchi, the following year he left for southern Scen-Si. In 1897 he returned to Italy to complete his studies and in 1899 he was appointed vicar general of Vigevano. On 16 May 1904 he was elected rector of the Urban College of Propaganda Fide in Rome and also domestic prelate. He received the post of apostolic delegate to the United States on February 2, 1912 and was consecrated a month later titular archbishop of Melitene by Cardinal Merry del Val. He will be created cardinal by Pius XI in the consistory of 11 December 1922 and in 1926 sent as Apostolic Legate to the International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago.
Don Guanella met Msgr. several times. Bonzano in Rome, when he was rector of the Collegio Urbano. The latter, for his part, was present at the inauguration of the * Pio X shelter and at the laying of the first stone of the * church of S. Giuseppe al Trionfale. A close friend of the papal secretary Don *Attilio Bianchi, Msgr. Bonzano visited with him the *Casa Divina Provvidenza in Como and the *Asilo degli Ulivi in Menaggio. A few months ago Apostolic Delegate to the United States, when Don Guanella stopped in Washington from 15 to 17 January 1913, he wanted to have him for lunch "as an old friend" and joyfully assured him that he would support his works in the United States. For Don Guanella that visit "was an enchantment that soon disappeared", because immediately afterwards he had to face an 18-hour train journey to be in Cincinnati the next day.
In 1917 Msgr. Bonzano had to intervene severely to moderate the excessive zeal of the young Guanellian priest *Giovanni Colombi, author of a series of inopportune initiatives in favor of the Guanellian nuns.
Sources
- Hierarchia catholica medii et modernioris aevi, vol. IX: 1903-1922, edited by Zeno Pięta, Padua, Publisher «Il Messaggero di S. Antonio», 2002, p. 248.
- «Bulletin of the Roman clergy», December 1927, p. 173.
Guanellian sources
-Epistolary of Luigi Guanella, edited by the Centro Studi Guanelliani, E 339, E 1608, E 1446.
- M. Giuseppina Cerri, The Guanellian missionary expansion in the United States of Americain Daughters of St. Mary of Providence and Servants of Charity in the twenty years following the death of the Founder, edited by Alejandro Dieguez, Rome, New Frontiers, 2003, pp. 335-337.
- In memory of a pious and holy Cardinal, in «The Divine Providence», 1928, pp. 119-120.
- Louis Guanella The journey of Fr Luigi Guanella across the United States of America. Notes and impressions, in "The Divine Providence", 1913, p. 37.
- An article in the New York Evening Bulletin, in "The Divine Providence", 1913, p. 59.
- Official inauguration of the Pius X Hospital, in "The Divine Providence", 1908, p. 20.
Image
- «Illustrated magazine of the Vatican Missionary Exhibition», December 15, 1925, p. 791.
AM Dieguez
Guanellian Encyclopaedia
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