CONFORTI, GUIDO MARIA, BL.

Founder of the xaverian missionary fathers; archbishop. b. Casalora di Ravadese (near Parma), Italy, March 30, 1865; d. Parma, Italy, Nov. 5, 1931. Son of Rinaldo and Antonia Conforti, Guido attended the Christian Brothers' school at Parma. Fascinated by a biography of St. Francis xavier, he desired to become a missionary to foreign lands. In 1876 he entered the diocesan seminary and was ordained on Sept. 22, 1888. He aided Paul Manna, PIME, in founding the Pontifical Missionary Union of the Clergy, of which he later became the first national president (1918).

Missionary activity ad gentes was still his great ideal, although his precarious health prevented him from undertaking such a strenuous activity. On the feast of St. Francis Xavier, Dec. 3, 1895, he established a seminary for training missionaries, and in 1898 he founded the Pious Congregation of St. Xavier for Foreign Missions. He was consecrated archbishop of Ravenna in 1902, but ill-health forced his resignation two years later. In 1907, after Conforti's health improved, Pope pius x personally asked him to accept an appointment as archbishop of Parma. For the next twenty-four years he worked with admirable zeal and prudence for the flock entrusted to his care. In addition, he continued to oversee the Xavieran Fathers, visiting their missions three years before his death. In 1941, ten years after his demise, the diocesan process for his beatification began. The apostolic process opened in Rome in 1960, leading to his beatification, March 17, 1996, by Pope John Paul II.

Feast: Nov. 5.

Bibliography: l. ballarin, L'anima missionaria di G. M. Conforti ((Parma 1962). g. barsotti, Il servo di Dio G. M. Conforti (Rome 1953); L'anima di Guido Maria Conforti (Rome 1975); Più vivo dei vivi (Rome 1970). g. bonardi, Guido Maria Conforti (Parma 1936). p. bonardi, u. delsante, and e. ferro, eds., A Parma e nel mondo (Parma 1996). f. teodori, ed. Il beato Guido Maria Conforti arcivescovo vescovo di Parma: nomina e possesso (Vatican City 1996); Beato Guido Maria Conforti: missioni in Cina e legislazione saveriana (Vatican City 1995). v. c. vanzin, Un pastore, due greggi (Parma 1950).

[f. g. sottocornola/

k. i. rabenstein]