In an outdoor ceremony in the tabernacle of St. Peter’s Basilica, in front of thirty thousand people, the Pope proclaimed the Salesian Artemide Zatti third Argentine saintthe first non-religious, extolling his virtues of dedication to the sick and poor of the man known as “the bicycle saint of Patagonia”, who was also proclaimed patron of the city of Viedma, capital of the Rio Negro, where for decades Zatti exercised his apostolate.
In the near future, Zatti could also be proclaimed patron of nurses.
The ceremony was attended by a delegation from our country led by the Secretary for Worship, Guillermo Olivieri, and the Argentine ambassador to the Vatican, Maria Fernanda Silva.
Francis also proclaimed Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, founder of the Congregation of the Missionaries of San Carlo Borromeo, a saint, who dedicated his life and work to the defense and reception of migrants.
Artémides Zatti himself was an immigrant, born in Italy in 1880, who arrived with his family in Argentina before the end of the 19th century, settling in Bahía Blanca.
Zatti obtained Argentine citizenship in 1914 in La Plata, where the local university awarded him the title of “Idóneo enfermero”.
In Bahía Blanca, Artémides worked for years as a laborer, before he goes to Viedma where he affirms his religious vocation as a Salesian brother.
Sick of tuberculosis, he promised Mary Help of Christians that he would dedicate his life and his apostolate to the sick asking for divine help for healing. So it was and Zatti kept his promise.
In Viedma, the capital of the Rio Negro, the “nurse of the poor” lived for half a century. The Pope in today’s ceremony recalled that “the hospital was the place where this man manifested his holiness with the white guar powder and the medicine bag, with the rosary in one hand and the bicycle handlebar in the other” .
The Pope explained that he was “very devoted” to the new saint.
On the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica, a large portrait of Zatti presided over the ceremony.
Zatti worked for 48 years in the same hospital in Viedma. In 1950 she fell off a ladder and discovered during treatment that she had symptoms of cancer. He wanted to continue until he could no longer and died on March 15, 1951.
The postulator general of the Salesian Congregation, Father Pier Lugi Cameroni, said that it is no coincidence that the Pope chose to canonize Artemide Zatti and Monsignor Scalabrini together, whom he has today proclaimed patron of migrants. “Both together with the altars, two significant figures to signal such a topical theme”.
The Salesians praise Artemide Zatti for her “ability to recognize the face of the Lord in the poor and the least”.
An anecdote about Artemis is told. One day in the hospital they told him that they could not accommodate more than 30 patients. Zatti replied: What if 31 were Jesus?.
In St. Peter’s Square today they were the two protagonists of the miracle accomplished with the intervention of Zatti who saved their lives. First of all, the Salesian priest Carlos Bossio, declared “miraculously cured”. Also the Filipino, who suffered an ischemic stroke in 2016 and whose brother, a Salesian brother, began a chain of prayer invoking the healing through the intercession of Artemide Zatti.
The Salesians assure that devotion to Zatti is growing a lot in Argentina and not only in Patagonia. He is likely to be proclaimed patron of nurses.
Francesco claimed that Artemide Zatti was a living example of gratitude. Healed of tuberculosis, “he dedicated his whole life to satisfying the needs of others, to taking care of the sick with love and tenderness”.
“They are said to have seen him carrying the body of one of his patients on his back. Full of gratitude for what he had received, he wanted to express his thanks for him by taking on the wounds of others.
In his homily, the Pope praised the work of Zatti, himself a migrant, and the new patron of immigrants, the Bishop of Piacenza Giovanni Battista Scalabrini (1830-1903). He assured with very strong words that “the exclusion of migrants is disgusting, criminal and sinful”.
Jorge Bergoglio, son of a family of Italian immigrants in Argentina, stressed that “the exclusion of migrants is criminal, it makes them die in front of us and that is why we call the Mediterranean the largest cemetery in the world”.
The Argentine Pope condemned that “doors are not opened to those in need, because we exclude them and send them to prison camps, where they are exploited and sold as slaves”.
The Pope asked the faithful whether those who manage to enter “welcome them as brothers or exploit them?” And he added: “I leave you with the question” At the end of the homily, Francis said that currently “there is a migration to Europe that makes us suffer and makes us open our hearts, which is that of Ukrainians on the run. from the war “.
And he asked again, as he does practically every day, “not to forget the martyred Ukraine”.
The Pope concluded his homily by asking everyone to pray “so that these two saints will help us to walk together without dividing walls and to cultivate that nobility of spirit so pleasing to God, which is gratitude”.
Source: Clarin
