Bl. Artemide Zatti. / Twitter @infoANS_EN
Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, said during the consistory on Saturday that the pope has selected October 9 as the date for the canonization of Blessed Artemide Zatti with Blessed Giovanni Battista Scalabrini.
The canonization was granted by Pope Francis in a decree issued on May 21, 2022.
Artemide Zatti was born in Italy, but came to Argentina at the age of 16 with his family in 1897. Due to tremendous poverty, the family fled their nation. Zatti was already assisting his parents as a farmhand at the age of nine.
On April 9, the pope approved a miracle attributed to Zatti’s intercession, clearing the route for his canonization as a saint.
As a youth in Baha Blanca, Argentina, Zatti attended a Catholic church sponsored by the Salesians of Don Bosco. At the age of 20, he submitted his application to become a Salesian priest.
Zatti developed TB at the Salesian community after caring for a young priest with the ailment.
One of the Salesian priests, a nurse, advised that Zatti ask for the intercession of Mary Help of Christians, promising that he would dedicate his life to caring for the ill if he was cured.
Zatti made the vow voluntarily and was cured of tuberculosis. Later, he said, “I believed, I promised, I was healed.”
Bl. Artemide Zatti, painting in the Basilica of María Auxiliadora y San Carlos in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Gabriel Sozzi via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
In order to dedicate himself to work in the medical sector, the young Italian immigrant renounced the priesthood and accepted a lay position as a Salesian Coadjutor Brother.
In 1915, at the age of 35, Zatti became the director of the Salesian-run hospital in the central Argentinean city of Viedma. Two years later, he also became the manager of the drugstore and obtained his nursing licence.
Not only did Zatti work at the hospital, but he also ventured to the outskirts of Viedma and the nearby city of Carmen de Patagones to assist those in need. His reputation as a holy nurse extended across that region of Argentina.
Zatti recognised Jesus in every one of his patients. Some individuals even reported seeing him transport the corpse of a patient who had died during the night to the morgue while reciting the De Profundis, a prayer for the dead derived from Psalm 130.
According to many who knew him, Zatti rendered his care to the ill with heroic sacrifice and radiated the light of God, even converting some nonbelievers.
After falling from a ladder in 1950, Zatti started to show symptoms of liver cancer. He continued to labour until his death on March 15, 1951, at age 70, from the illness.
Artemide Zatti is the first coadjutor of the Salesian order to be canonised as a saint.