Born in Besana (Milan) on March 11, 1858.
Died in Rome on February 13, 1922.
A missionary in Hindustan since 1880, he was elected bishop of Hyderabad in 1897. Resigned in 1908, in 1909 he was promoted to the titular church of Ezani. He was superior general of the Seminary of Foreign Missions in Milan from 1909 to 1913 and, for some time, auxiliary bishop of Tortona. On June 30, 1917, laying down the episcopal insignia with the consent of Benedict XV, he entered the Society of Jesus and then left as a missionary among the lepers in the Philippine Islands.
Don Guanella had Msgr. Viganò as a companion in the * pilgrimage to Lourdes made at the end of August 1903. Returning from the missions in the East and settling in Milan as rector of his institute, Msgr. Viganò often visited the Guanellian charitable works, which, coordinated by Don * Aurelio Bacciarini, took action to help his missions. On 27 September 1911 he was in Pianello Lario, where he celebrated mass in the morning and later visited the house, praising its order and cleanliness, comforting and blessing the poor sick people. In January 1912 he went to get to know the Ambrosian institutes of * S. Gaetano and of *St. Ambrogio ad Nemus, welcoming the church, the schools, the infirmaries, the workshops and the refectories. On the following 7 December, he returned for the patronal feast of S. Ambrogio ad Nemus, celebrating mass in the morning and administering confirmation in the afternoon to many orphan girls and to the young patients of the S. Gaetano institute. It is perhaps because of his great availability to the pastoral ministry that on 8 December 1911 Don Guanella had proposed to Don *Francesco Deleidi, parish priest of San Paolo d'Argon, to invite Msgr. Viganò (whom he himself would have accompanied), to solemnize the feasts of that Bergamo parish and make the population aware of the needs of the Catholic missions.
Sources:
Hierarchia catholica medii et modernioris aevi, vol. VIII: 1846-1903, edited by Remigium Ritzler and Pirminum Sefrin, Padua, Publisher «Il Messaggero di S. Antonio», 1878, p. 311.
«L'Osservatore Romano», 14 February 1922, p. 2.
Guanellian sources:
[LUIGI GUANELLA], Towards Lourdes, in «La Divina Provvidenza», 1903, p. 65.
Gleaning, in "The Divine Providence", 1911, p. 135.
Guanellian Letters, n. 1054.
The echo of the missions, in «La Divina Provvidenza», 1912, pp. 10-11.
The feast of S. Ambrogio ad nemus in Milan, in «La Divina Provvidenza», 1912, p. 88.
CONGREGATIO DE CAUSIS SANCTORUM, Luganen. Beatifica¬tionis et canonizationis servi Dei Aurelii Bacciarini [...]. Positio super virtutibus, Summarium, Rome, Tipografia Guerra, 1996, p. 91 (witness Mons. Emilio Cattori).
Photographs:
Funeral image (courtesy of Father Mauro Mezzadonna, general archivist of PIME).
AM Dieguez
Guanellian Encyclopaedia
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