The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Melanesia and Micronesia, 1850-1875

By Ralph M. Wiltgen and Charles W. Forman

The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Melanesia and Micronesia, 1850 to 1875 is the result of Father Ralph Wiltgen's years of archival work in Rome and at the headquarters of religious orders who worked in Micronesia and Melanesia. It follows his first historical book on the subject, The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania: 1825 to 1850, but narrows the focus. The first book dealt with the whole of Oceania and emphasized developments in Polynesia. This book concentrates on Melanesia and Micronesia from 1850 to 1875, the period immediately before the work of large numbers of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Marists, and Divine Word Missionaries assumed great momentum in the period between 1875 and 1914.
Micronesia is a huge area of the world, made up of numerous culturally and politically distinct groups of atolls ranging over about 1,400 miles from the northwest to the southeast. Its peoples speak scores of mutually unintelligible though related languages on such island groups as the Marshalls, the Gilberts, Nauru, and Kiribati.
Far more heavily populated is Melanesia, another huge area of the Pacific where as many as one thousand distinct languages are spoken in an arc of islands extending from just below the equator in a boomerang shape from today's Indonesian controlled Papua and independent Papua New Guinea on the island of New Guinea in the northwest all the way along the Solomon Island chain to 25° south latitude to the southeast.
In this book, Wiltgen shows himself the undisputed master of the archives of the Propaganda Fide, the Vatican's chief mission agency and the religious orders that provided missionaries, all of which is supplemented by his attention to the lives of key people of the period. He shows the Propaganda now prodding missionary orders to take on the difficult work of evangelizing these areas and on other occasions struggling to keep up with and understand fast-moving events and the colorful characters--both ecclesiastical and among colonial administrators, rogue sea captains, and indigenous leaders. Wiltgen lets the contemporary records speak for themselves, though one can imagine his arched brow and mischievous grin as he selects exactly the right quote to describe now an act of missionary heroism and now an act of self-promotion.
It is a masterful book, making available the early history of one of Catholicism's greatest missionary successes, helping the reader understand both the idealism of the vision and the way in which concrete events and people affected the outcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Jan 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781498275439

Ralph M. Wiltgen

Ralph M. Wiltgen, SVD, was a Divine Word Missionary and Roman Catholic priest for over fifty-seven years. Born in 1921, he died in December 2007, just weeks before this book was published. He devoted his life to research in the field of missiology. He is the author of several books including The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania: 1825 to 1850.

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Preface

A Perspective on Ralph Wiltgen’s History of Catholic Origins

Charles W. Forman, Professor Emeritus of Missions, Yale University

This volume by Ralph Wiltgen takes a special place alongside other scholarly histories of Pacific missions. These histories are not numerous, for the field has not been widely explored until recently. When it comes to Roman Catholic mission histories, the following are all we have. The first writer of Catholic mission history in the Pacific was André Dupeyrat, writing on the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of his mission in Papouasie: Histoire de la Mission, 1885–1935, published in Paris in 1935. Four years after Dupeyrat came a pioneer work on Kiribati by Ernest Sabatier, Sous l’Equateur du Pacifique: Les Isles Gilbert et la Mission Catholique, 1888–1938 (Paris, 1939). This work proved to be a treasure for Kiribati history and was eventually translated into English.

A continuation of Dupeyrat’s work was provided on the hundredth anniversary of his mission by Georges Delbos, Cent Ans chez les Papous: Mission accomplie? (Issoudun, 1984), which was also published in English within a year. Fiji had its fifty-year history with La Croix dans l’Archipel Fidji (de 1894 à nos jours) by Cyprien Destable and J. M. Sédès (Paris, 1944), and Vanuatu had its centenary volume with Paul Monnier’s Cent Ans de Mission, L’Eglise Catholique au Vanuatu, 1887–1987 (Port Vila, 1987). In accord with the bilingual character of the country, that book was published simultaneously in English. Micronesia waited longest for a history, Francis Hezel’s The Catholic Church in Micronesia: Historical Essays (Chicago, 1991).

All these works have been by missionaries writing about their own missions. The only historical work by an academic historian is Marists and Melanesians: A History of Catholic Missions in the Solomon Islands by Hugh M. Laracy (Canberra, 1976). And there is the academic study that covers the whole of Catholic history in the Pacific as well as that of the Protestants, John Garrett’s trilogy: To Live Among the Stars (Geneva, 1985), Footsteps in the Sea (Geneva, 1992), and Where Nets Were Cast (Geneva, 1997).

Standing among all the others, yet different from them all is Father Wiltgen’s The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania, 1825–1850 (Canberra, 1979). That volume, of course, is the companion and predecessor to the study you now hold in your hand. In it and the present volume, Wiltgen concentrates on the beginnings of missions to an extent that is not found in any of the other studies. Both volumes deal only with the incipient stages of Catholic mission work. The dates they cover, 1825–1850 and 1850–1875 respectively, are prior to the work of the other Catholic histories we have mentioned. In the case of this volume on Melanesia, they are also dealing with dates prior to those covered in most Protestant mission histories. The first Protestant missionaries to New Guinea arrived in 1874 in the case of the London Missionary Society and in 1875 in the case of the Methodists. Anglican work in the Solomon Islands started earlier, but only in the form of visits that did not result in settlement. Only in the last quarter of the nineteenth century did Anglicans shift their center to the Solomons. Only on the fringes of Melanesia in Vanuatu and the Loyalty Islands was there an establishment of Protestant mission work before the period covered in this volume. So we have here, in effect, an introduction to Melanesian missions of all types and especially to the problems that missions were getting into when they entered Melanesia.

More notably, Wiltgen presents his story in a detail and with a thoroughness that no other Pacific historian has attempted to match. As year proceeds to year and sometimes month to month, the reader follows the course of mission life in a way that is not possible in the other, more cursory histories. Reading Wiltgen we wish that we could be as well informed about other times and places.

Furthermore, he provides insights into the inner workings of mission sending agencies that is not found elsewhere. We see how people with different ideas make their impact on the Catholic missions. We see how unexpected actors change the course of events. We see the details of policy making and how policies are related to specific persons. Nowhere else in Pacific mission history can one get this wealth of insight into the people behind the missions as well as into the minds of the missionaries themselves.

All this is a monumental work, one that will provide a great resource for historians of the future.

New Haven, April 2007

1

Supriès, a French Carthusian, Interests Lombardy Clerics in Micronesia

1845–47

In early July 1843 a French Carthusian monk, Father Thaddée Supriès (1800–1888), clashed with Giacomo Filippo Fransoni (1775–1856), an Italian cardinal twenty-five years his senior. The monk was vicar to the prior of the Carthusian monastery attached to the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels in Rome. The cardinal was prefect or director of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, a branch of the Roman Curia founded in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV to supervise and direct Roman Catholic missionary work around the world.¹ They clashed over Northern Oceania, better known as Micronesia, in the cardinal’s office in Palazzo de Propaganda Fide near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

More precisely they clashed over the rank that Supriès was to receive on being placed in charge of missionary work in Micronesia. He had suggested to Fransoni on 6 April 1843 that the vast expanse of islands in the Pacific Ocean north of the equator and south of Japan, between Hawaii and the Philippines, should be made an independent mission called Northern Oceania. This was no idle dream of a pious monk. Paul-Laurent-Marcel Supriès was a veteran missionary of the Paris Foreign Mission Seminary, having served for almost ten years in India, Siam (now Thailand), and the Nicobar Islands. When later he became a Carthusian monk at La Grande Chartreuse in France on 29 June 1839, his Christian name was changed to Thaddée. Fransoni seemed ready indeed to give him the rank of prefect apostolic over Micronesia, which meant that he would be in charge of the mission as a priest. But Supriès insisted on being named vicar apostolic with the rank of bishop, since otherwise he would not have enough prestige to attract personnel, he said.

Wiltgen%20A.tif

Vital statistics of Father Thaddée Supriès, the Carthusian monk who inspired Milan seminarians with interest in foreign missionary work. He himself had served earlier in the Nicobar Islands as a member of the Paris Foreign Mission Seminary. Source: CART: Catalogue des Religieux, 148.

Some two weeks after his clash with the cardinal, Supriès wrote from his monastery in Rome telling Fransoni that he no longer experienced some repugnance . . . at being named a prefect apostolic, because Divine Providence has given me personnel for the mission of Northern Oceania in an altogether unexpected way. But by that time Fransoni had a new problem: he had to find quickly an alternative territory for Bishop Jean-Baptiste-François Pompallier (1801–71), vicar apostolic of Western Oceania with headquarters in New Zealand. Because of his French nationality, Pompallier was being threatened with expulsion by the British, who were fast taking over New Zealand.

The Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia (or Northern Oceania) was created one year later on 16 July 1844, exactly as Supriès had suggested, but Rome did not entrust it to him. It was entrusted instead to a missionary group in France called Marists, officially known as the Society of Mary (S.M.), with headquarters in Lyon. Fransoni instructed the Marists, who supplied all of Pompallier’s staff, to hold the new vicariate in reserve for the bishop in case he and his men should be expelled from New Zealand by the British. As for Supriès, Fransoni showered him with praise for having suggested the Micronesia Vicariate, but gave him no other role than to recommend this important affair to the Lord.²

The Order of Carthusians (O. Cart.) transferred Supriès on 10 August 1843 from Rome to the Certosa di Pavia in northern Italy, extolled as the most celebrated religious monument in Lombardy.³ This Carthusian monastery, founded in 1396 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, is somewhat north of Pavia and about fifteen miles southwest of Milan. Clerics from Milan and Lombardy came to enjoy its beauty and stillness and to spend days of prayer and recollection called retreats. They all met Supriès, who had been put in charge of retreats.

When I arrived in this part of Italy, Supriès later wrote to Cardinal Fransoni, I was really grieved at finding so little interest among the clergy in taking up holy missionary work. He tried to understand why among so many priests in the province of Lombardy not one could be found generous enough to abandon his homeland and cross the seas with the aim of bringing the knowledge of the name of Jesus Christ to nations without faith. He shared this disappointment with some good priests who visited him, and he examined the problem deeper with those who arrived at various times to make here the spiritual retreats of which I am in charge.⁴

Wiltgen%20B.tif

These explanations of the vital statistics of Father Thaddée Supriès were supplied on 23 July 1987 by Father Luc Fauchon, Archivist of La Grande-Chartreuse Monastery at St. Laurent-Du-Pont in France.

Seminarians studying philosophy and theology in Lombardy also found their way to the monastery, especially during the summer holiday period from June to September. They felt attracted by its prayerful atmosphere. Meeting Supriès was a treasured experience, and they quickly became enamored of this man whose eloquence set their hearts afire with new purpose. He described for them his experiences in the mission field and explained the organization of the Paris Foreign Mission Seminary to which he had once belonged. He also awakened their interest in the Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia that he had envisioned, but for which he had volunteered in vain. The province of Lombardy ought to have a foreign mission seminary of its own, he told the young men, and its mission field ought to be the Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia.⁵

One of the many seminarians inspired by Supriès was Giovanni Battista Mazzucconi (1826–55) from Rancio di Lecco in the Archdiocese of Milan. He was nineteen and had completed his first year of philosophy at the Monza seminary when he accompanied some seminarians to the Carthusian monastery during the summer vacation of 1845. Like others, he began corresponding with Supriès. Those with a budding interest in foreign missionary work found in this monk a wealth of information and inspiration; he was also a champion for their cause. In clerical circles the Certosa di Pavia fast became known as a nucleus of missionary animation. At the core of it all was the director of retreats, Father Supriès.⁶

Federico Salvioni, a theology student at the Milan major seminary, also visited the Carthusian monastery in the summer of 1845. When Supriès learned that he and a fellow seminarian were going to Switzerland on business, he prevailed upon them to extend their journey to Lyon in France and to spend a few days there at the Marist headquarters. He wanted them to learn more about Micronesia and other Marist missions in Oceania and so imbibe the true apostolic spirit. Supriès, then forty-five, wrote a letter of introduction for Salvioni and his companion to fifty-five-year-old Father Jean-Claude Colin (1790–1875), the founder and superior general of the Marists.

By the time Salvioni and his friend were ready to leave for Switzerland and France, another seminarian had joined them. On reaching Lyon they found Colin engrossed in giving his society members their annual retreat, which lasted from 12 to 19 September. Colin therefore delegated the provincial superior of France, thirty-four-year-old Father Pierre-Julien Eymard (1811–68), to be one of their hosts. (This was the same Eymard who would be declared a saint on 9 December 1962 by Pope John XXIII.) On their return to Milan they were full of admiration for what they had seen and heard and even more eager to take up a missionary vocation. This made Supriès believe that the Lyon visit had produced excellent results.⁷

Salvioni wrote to Colin from the Milan major seminary on 16 January 1846, nine months before his ordination to the subdiaconate. After reminding Colin of his visit the previous September, he explained that a reputable religious journal edited in Milan now wished to publish for the edification above all of the clergy, the information that he and his two friends had obtained from the Marists. He asked Colin’s consent to publish this material and requested additional data to complement and correct what had been learned by word of mouth from several Marist priests. Questions of particular interest to us, he said, are these: How did the Society of Mary begin and what is its present status? With what spirit and for what purpose was it founded? What are its principal rules, particularly those for the novitiate? In what pious works is it engaged? Where do foreign missions fit in among these works? Hopefully Colin would answer these questions, Salvioni said, because such an article published in Italy could be a seed that would be able to bear fruit in due time.⁸

Colin gave great importance to Salvioni’s letter and asked Eymard, his closest collaborator, to answer it. Eymard explained how a handful of seminarians began meeting periodically in 1815. In late 1816 they were allowed to hold their meetings in a hall of the Lyon major seminary. There were delays, refusals, contradictions and humiliations of every kind that had to be endured for twenty years before the Society of Mary received papal approbation. When it was formally approved by Pope Gregory XVI on 29 April 1836, the society had only twenty priests, Eymard said. But by 1846, the current year, it already had ten foundations in France and had sent ninety of its priests and brothers to Oceania. Four priests had been made bishops by Rome and were in charge of vicariates in New Zealand, Central Oceania, New Caledonia, and Melanesia-Micronesia.

The letter ended with Eymard admitting that a wish had constantly filled his heart while he was composing the letter. And now I dare to tell you about it, he said. The wish was that you may become the instrument of Providence for transplanting the Society of Mary to your beautiful Italy which is so Catholic and so filled with devotion to the Queen of Heaven. Eymard said he would pray to the Virgin Mary so that my wish may be fulfilled.⁹

Milan at this time was part of the Lombard-Veneto kingdom ruled by Austria. Since 1818 it had had an Austrian-born archbishop, then seventy-six-year-old Karl Gaetan Cardinal Gaysruck (1769–1846). This cardinal had forbidden the founding of new religious organizations in his archdiocese, a ban that extended to missionary organizations as well. Eager to go abroad as missionaries, but hindered by the archbishop’s ruling, three young priests and a deacon instinctively turned to Supriès. He could not help them, he said, since what they needed was support from Cardinal Prefect Fransoni of Propaganda Fide. Vivid memories of his clash with the cardinal three years earlier made him believe that he was excluded from the cardinal’s good graces. Yet the clerics gave Supriès no rest; month after month they persisted in asking that he intercede for them with Rome. After all, who would help them if he did not? And why had he been stirring up foreign mission interest in their breasts, if no missionary from Lombardy could go overseas?

Encouraged perhaps by Eymard’s letter to Salvioni, which reached Milan on 14 February 1846, Supriès finally gave in and wrote to Rome on 20 March. But he did not write to Fransoni. Nor did he write to Fransoni’s secretary, Archbishop Giovanni Brunelli. He wrote instead to Father Clemente Maria Buratti, a minutante or clerk in Fransoni’s office. Supriès had come to know and trust him when making his 1843 proposals for the founding of the Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia. Explaining why he was not writing directly to the cardinal, he said a certain timidity—or let me rather say a kind of indescribable fear—hinders me from doing so. This fear was caused by the remembrance of some past events, which you can well recall. He urged Buratti to show his customary goodness and hear him out, since his request was not for himself, but for others. The request was very important and, if realized, would greatly benefit the foreign missions. Supriès then told Buratti that two priests from the Archdiocese of Milan and also a priest and a deacon from the nearby Diocese of Lodi had been begging for many months that I make it possible for them to become missionaries. Their spiritual directors had tested their vocations thoroughly and had found them to be genuine. The two from Lodi could easily obtain the necessary permission from their bishop, but the two from Milan anticipated great difficulties.

Since all four were from Lombardy and had become close friends during seminary days, they wanted to work together in the same mission. By reading the Italian edition of the famous French magazine known in English as Annals of the Propagation of the Faith,¹⁰ they had become acquainted with Oceania’s great need for missionaries and had learned how well disposed those peoples were toward Christianity. For this reason they wanted to have Micronesia, for example, as their field of apostolic activity if it did not yet have missionaries, or else any other place in that abandoned area.

Wanting their project to endure, the four clerics had formed the plan of uniting themselves in a congregation named after and protected by Saint Francis Xavier. Such an organization would provide openings for mission work for the many priests of Lombardy who wish to go to the missions, but who cannot do so because no openings exist. The four pioneers were convinced that companions will quickly join them, because many students of theology are excellently disposed to embrace this state of life.

But founding such an organization in Milan was out of the question at the moment, Supriès said, because the present archbishop would never give his approval. It was therefore proposed that the Congregation of Saint Francis Xavier exist formally only in those countries to which its missionaries would be sent. After a change of circumstances, the congregation could be established formally in Milan. Since this city was a good source of missionary vocations and of financial assistance, it was considered an ideal location for the congregation’s headquarters. As for necessary services in Milan, like those of a correspondent, supplier of goods, recruiter of personnel, and collector of funds, a good priest has already volunteered to provide these services for the group. This priest, Supriès said, would like to go to the missions himself, but he is hindered because of various assignments.

Supriès wanted to do nothing else but follow Buratti’s advice. He therefore inquired whether he should write about this matter to Fransoni, or perhaps to the cardinal’s secretary, Brunelli. What should I say? Be frank and tell me if the project seems impractical! Should I give it no further thought? Or should I keep encouraging them? Supriès asked for a speedy reply because these good gentlemen do not have much patience and they maintain that much delay could give rise to new obstacles.¹¹

Buratti’s reply must have been both speedy and enthusiastic because Supriès wrote a four-page letter to Cardinal Prefect Fransoni seventeen days later on 6 April 1846. It was the third anniversary of the letter written by Supriès in Rome in which he had suggested to Fransoni the founding of an independent mission for Micronesia.¹² After describing for the cardinal what he had done to stir up mission interest in Lombardy since his arrival at Pavia, he said that four priests and a deacon¹³ were persistently asking him to provide them with the means of going to the foreign missions. They have felt themselves called by God to this walk of life for several years. The deacon and two of the priests were from the Diocese of Lodi. Since their bishop was very zealous regarding mission work, they would have no difficulty in obtaining his permission to leave. But the other two priests were from the Archdiocese of Milan, he said, and will have great obstacles to overcome. They therefore hoped that the Sacred Congregation will kindly take some action with His Eminence, the Archbishop of Milan, to obtain his consent for their departure.

Supriès then explained under three headings the project which they after mature examination desire to submit to Your Most Reverend Eminence:

1. The five clerics wished to unite themselves in a congregation called ‘The Missionaries of Saint Francis Xavier’ and to found in Milan a mission center or seminary. But because of Archbishop Gaysruck’s prohibition the formal establishment of the congregation in Milan would have to be postponed. The congregation would formally exist in those places, however, to which its missionaries might be sent. Meanwhile a chargé d’affaires or two, based in Milan, would recruit candidates, collect funds, write letters, and so on. Two excellent priests full of zeal and possessing great influence had already volunteered to perform these services for the congregation.

2. They wish to be entrusted with a particular mission exclusively for themselves, which could be called a Milan mission, or better still a Lombard mission. The reasons favoring this seem very strong to them, Supriès said, since then the province of Lombardy would want to support it, favor it, and regularly provide it with new missionaries and supplies. This might not happen if they were to be interspersed with missionaries from other countries or if the Lombard missionaries were not all together in the same country. They believed that having a mission field exclusively for themselves would also be an excellent help for them to preserve better the spirit of union, peace, fraternal charity and fervor, since they have been united by the closest bonds of friendship for a number of years already. They also believed that this will be a very strong inducement for other Lombards to join them, something that would make the new association stable and give it a large membership.

3. "Made aware of the great need for missionaries in Oceania by what they were able to read in the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, and knowing also the favorable dispositions of those islanders to embrace the faith, they are hoping that this will be the area destined for their apostolic activities. Supriès added, however, that they wanted to do nothing but the will of God and that they were therefore ready and eager to conform to whatever the Sacred Congregation might propose."

In his letter to Buratti, Supriès had specifically mentioned Micronesia as the mission desired by the young priests; in this letter to Fransoni he mentioned Oceania, not Micronesia. Perhaps Buratti had advised him to ask for some Oceania mission in general or for whatever the Sacred Congregation might propose. Or perhaps Supriès, in view of his earlier falling out with Fransoni over Micronesia, preferred not to mention it in this first letter to the cardinal.

Supriès added that Deacon Cesare Mola expected to be ordained a priest on Trinity Sunday, 7 June 1846. He listed the names of all five clerics and added some information that he thought might interest the cardinal:

Clerics Age Place of Origin Ordained a Priest

Paolo Faré 24 Milan Archdiocese 17 May 1845

Pompeo Beretta 25 Milan Archdiocese 17 May 1845

Vincenzo Cassinelli 24 Lodi Diocese 17 May 1845

Giovanni Vistarini Lodi Diocese

Deacon Cesare Mola 22 Lodi Diocese

It is true that they are rather young to be entrusted with a mission of their own, Supriès admitted, but this difficulty could perhaps be remedied by adding to their number some missionaries of mature age and experience. All five candidates were hoping that Rome would send a speedy and favorable reply so that they can begin taking the necessary steps with both church and civil authorities. Supriès promised to supply at once any further information that might be needed by the cardinal.¹⁴

Before describing how The Missionaries of Saint Francis Xavier would be organized, Supriès said that the clerics were submitting the project to Fransoni after mature examination. Now if the project had stemmed from the clerics, as has been maintained in literature,¹⁵ there would hardly be need for them to examine it. As drafters of the project they would have been well aware of its contents. But if the project had been drafted for them by someone else, it then would have been necessary that they examine it before submitting it to Rome for approval. Who, then, was the originator of this project for a Lombardy seminary for foreign missions? No one else comes into question but Supriès. As he told Fransoni in his letter, the four priests and the deacon had come to him in order that I might provide them with the means of going to the foreign missions. The means that Supriès devised was the proposed missionary congregation of Saint Francis Xavier.

The choice of name for the missionary congregation was easy to understand. In northern Italy at this time there was an organization for those interested in praying for, learning about, and contributing to the foreign missions. It was akin to the Association for the Propagation of the Faith in France and was called the Company of Saint Francis Xavier. Mazzucconi, the seminarian who corresponded with Supriès, had been a member of this organization from his childhood. His father Giacomo had enrolled his entire family. As Supriès told Fransoni when explaining the name of the missionary congregation, members will have no other aim but to imitate the holy apostle of the Indies, the great Francis Xavier, and will dedicate their entire lives to preaching the gospel in the midst of idolatrous nations.¹⁶

In addition to the above reasons, which credit the experienced French Carthusian with originating and developing the project and not the young and inexperienced Italian clerics, still another reason points toward the leading role played by Supriès. When presenting to Fransoni three years earlier his ideas on founding a mission in Northern Oceania or Micronesia, he made himself responsible for getting personnel if the mission should be entrusted to him. He told the cardinal that he would lay the foundations for a new Congregation of Missionary Priests which will be established in Paris at the Church of Our Lady of Victory. The congregation was to be modelled after the [Paris] Foreign Mission Seminary to which he had earlier belonged.¹⁷ For three years Supriès had harbored this idea; now he had found a way to have it realized in Lombardy.

Fransoni answered Supriès’s letter of 6 April 1846 on 2 May, praising the project highly and expressing delight over this unexpected source of missionary personnel so much needed at the present time. Because there was no new mission that could be entrusted exclusively to the Lombardy clerics at the moment, the cardinal offered another solution, at least for now. If the young priests should agree, he would send them to an already existing mission to work under a capable prelate whose staff of veteran missionaries was rapidly dwindling. In this way they could gain missionary experience on the spot, while back in Lombardy their members would be increasing. When those abroad had sufficient experience to take charge, the mission would be turned over exclusively to them and they could choose its superior from their own ranks. In your wisdom you will agree, the letter said, that their working under an experienced superior and side by side with veteran missionaries is very fitting and even necessary, since the candidates are still too green in age and too inexperienced to be placed completely in charge of a territory at once.

Supriès had mentioned the great need for missionaries in Oceania, but Fransoni pointed out that the missions of Oceania are already taken care of, having been divided among two societies, the Marists and the priests called Picpus.¹⁸ He added that the Sacred Congregation would be pleased, however, if it could assign the Lombard priests to some important missions in the Indies, where it wanted to have Italian missionaries exclusively and where priests are very scarce in proportion to the immensity of the terrain. Indies was used by Propaganda Fide at this time for India and other nearby countries.

Fransoni’s wish was that Supriès continue nurturing the missionary vocations of these young priests and that he inform them of Rome’s suggestion. If they are disposed to go along with this proposal, as I hope they will be, the cardinal said, urge them to begin studying English right away since it is an altogether indispensable language in the regions referred to. In this mission they would also have to learn the local language of the inhabitants.

The problem caused by Cardinal Gaysruck, the archbishop of Milan, was not overlooked by Fransoni. He told Supriès to assure the priests, who ought to be praised again and again, that the Sacred Congregation in this matter will easily and efficaciously take the steps needed to remove the obstacles and iron out the difficulties that seem to hinder some of them from being sent abroad. The young missionaries were to make arrangements with the two Milan priests, who had volunteered to serve as chargés d’affaires for the new congregation, regarding the type of assistance that they were to provide. Propaganda Fide at the same time was to be kept informed of these arrangements until a house or seminary could be founded in a suitable place. Meanwhile Fransoni would await additional reports from Supriès, because on the basis of these it will be possible for me to take further steps. He promised to keep Supriès abreast of all decisions made and ended his letter with affectionate praise for your zeal.

Fransoni sent a second letter to Lombardy on 2 May, the same day on which he wrote to Supriès. But instead of writing a letter of blame to Archbishop Gaysruck of Milan, he wrote a letter of praise to seventy-seven-year-old Bishop Gaetano Benaglia (1768–1868) of Lodi. Knowing of your zeal and desire to help the missions, the cardinal began, I do not hesitate to approach you in confidence in order to have news and information about some priests of your diocese. Without mentioning that it was Supriès, the cardinal said that through a religious of distinction they have made known to me their desire to go and propagate the Gospel in places where there are infidels. The cardinal asked for an impartial appraisal of their qualities and said he would await the bishop’s reply.¹⁹

Supriès passed on the information received from Fransoni to the five Lombard clerics and told the cardinal on 18 May 1846 that they were most grateful to him for granting their wishes. They recognized the will of God in the commands of the Sacred Congregation and were ready to go to whatever mission is designated for them. Supriès added that all five clerics had already received the necessary ecclesiastical and civil permissions. Whenever Fransoni wished, they could leave for Rome to be reunited there in the presence of Your Eminence in the course of the coming month of June.²⁰

It greatly pleased Fransoni to learn that the five clerics had accepted his proposal. And when three of them arrived unannounced in his office—Fathers Faré, Cassinelli, and Vistarini—he received them with pleasure and found lodging for them in the Pontifical Greek College. But on learning that Beretta and Mola were planning an early trip to Rome as well, he quickly wrote on 11 June to Supriès, urging him to tell them, if this gets to you on time, that they should not undertake the journey to Rome until they receive positive word to that effect. There was no room for them in Rome at the moment. Instead they were to keep practicing English in some way in Lombardy, as their companions were doing in Rome, until such time when they can later join their companions in Rome, so that all of them can be sent to the mission together.

Fransoni thanked Supriès again for his tireless zeal in promoting the greater good of the missions. He likewise urged the monk to continue his efforts and to keep providing counsel, since this was contributing toward the realization of the proposed missionary congregation. He added that all further news on this project would make him happy.²¹

Before Supriès could reach Father Beretta to tell him to stay in Milan, he had left for Rome. Mola, now a priest, was still in Milan because his request for a passport had to be sent to Vienna. Supriès feared that the paperwork connected with this may take months, even years, so he asked Fransoni on 30 June what he should do about it. Meanwhile Mola was waiting patiently and was continuing his study of English.²²

Prior to their departure from Milan for Rome between 18 May and 11 June 1846, Fathers Faré, Cassinelli, and Vistarini had visited the Seminario Filosofico at Monza to take leave of its superiors. Mazzucconi, who was completing his second year of philosophical studies there, was eager to see the missionaries. After waiting in a doorway for the longest time, he managed to get a glimpse of them. In May of that year he had received from Father Pietro Tacconi (1808–68), his spiritual director at Monza, the go-ahead for his own missionary vocation. During the June–August summer vacation he returned to the Certosa di Pavia to make a ten-day retreat and be with his friend, correspondent, and advisor Father Supriès. Like the missionaries destined for the Indies, he too began studying languages, especially English.²³

In September 1846 the three Lombard priests from the Lodi diocese left Rome for Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the mission chosen for them by Fransoni. Vistarini would remain there all his life. Mola would return to Italy in 1855 and go back to Ceylon in 1858, and Cassinelli would spend seven years in Ceylon. This foreign mission involvement by clerics of the Lodi diocese had an impact on clerics in the rest of Lombardy. It proved concretely that Lombards could be successful as foreign missionaries. Fathers Faré and Beretta from the Milan archdiocese decided not to go to Ceylon. They returned to Milan and gave up their missionary vocations. Did they become disillusioned on learning in Rome that the Ceylon mission entrusted to them was torn by schism and division?²⁴

Death plays an important role in fashioning the course of human events. Cardinal Gaysruck, the Austrian archbishop of Milan, died at the age of seventy-seven on 19 November 1846. Thus the obstacle standing in the way of founding a foreign mission seminary in Lombardy was removed. It was not until 10 April 1847 that Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria proposed Carlo Bartolomeo Romilli (1795–1859) as Gaysruck’s successor. Pope Pius IX (1792–1878) ratified this choice, making Romilli the new archbishop of Milan on 14 June 1847.²⁵

One month after Gaysruck died, Supriès learned in the December 1846 issue of the Italian Annals of the Propagation of the Faith about the death of the Marist bishop, Jean-Baptiste Epalle. The bishop was in charge of the two vicariates of Melanesia and Micronesia, was attacked in the Solomon Islands on 16 December 1845, and died from his wounds three days later.²⁶ There were a few surviving missionaries in his Vicariate Apostolic of Melanesia, but there were none and never had been any in his Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia. Supriès no doubt surmised that now there was greater likelihood of Rome entrusting Micronesia to the missionary priests of Lombardy.

Mission interest among the clerics of Lombardy continued to grow. Salvioni, who during his theological studies had visited the Marists in Lyon at the suggestion of Supriès, was ordained a subdeacon on 25 October 1846 and wanted by all means to become a missionary. His friend, Paolo Reina (1825–61), even before becoming a seminarian, had written to Bishop (now Blessed) Eugène de Mazenod of Marseille, France, the founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.), and asked whether he could join that missionary order. But he was told to wait. Antonio Marietti had visited Supriès during the summer vacation of 1847 and announced that he would be joining the Marist missionaries in Lyon, France, to whom he then applied several times. When he was not accepted, he decided to seek admission to the proposed Lombardy mission seminary. Father Pietro Pontiggia, spiritual director at Milan’s Canonica seminary, was also well aware of the project being promoted by Supriès. When Mazzucconi during his first year of theological studies (1846–47) approached Pontiggia for advice on what mission society he should join, Pontiggia said, Within three years a house for the foreign missions will arise here in our midst.²⁷

The developments of 1846 and 1847, as well as Supriès’s unflagging concern for the establishment of what he called a mission seminary in Lombardy,²⁸ make it clear that certain words of his addressed to Cardinal Prefect Fransoni on 30 June 1846 are not to be taken seriously. Reacting to news received from Lombard priests in Rome about the Ceylon mission being convulsed by schism and other divisions, he told Fransoni that this news had cooled off very much the interest of those in Milan who had volunteered to help. In fact, it has made them lose all their courage. As for getting further personnel, it is very easy to foresee that young priests will not feel any attraction for such a mission. It grieves me to say that I therefore consider the project as having in fact vanished.²⁹

Did Supriès really feel that the project had in fact vanished? Such a grandiose idea, germinating for several years in so many young hearts, certainly could not vanish overnight. His words were nothing but a hasty judgment reflecting a moment of discouragement. Or did he intend them rather as a ruse, a way of telling the cardinal that he should not have assigned the young priests to Ceylon, but instead ought to designate Micronesia as a mission field exclusively for the priests of Lombardy?

Since Supriès was both a Frenchman and a religious order member, it was not to be expected that he should become the founder of a foreign mission seminary for Italian secular clergy in Lombardy. Being a monk, however, he was able to back up all his efforts with a vast amount of prayer and divine assistance. He was an influential man, he had contacts in Rome and abroad, and he knew how to work through others and with others. He had succeeded in interesting young priests and seminarians of Lombardy in going overseas as missionaries, and he had managed to convince Fransoni of Lombardy’s potential for supplying missionary personnel. But what he still needed was someone in Lombardy with ecclesiastical authority to take action.

In 1847, a year in which central Europe was filled with political unrest, thirty-seven-year-old Bishop Jean-Félix-Onésime Luquet (1810–58) journeyed from Rome to Switzerland on a papal mission.³⁰ While en route he made an unannounced stopover in Milan between 11 and 24 November to visit the city’s newly installed archbishop.³¹ Not finding Romilli at his residence and learning that he was making his annual retreat at the nearby Collegio of the Missionary Oblates in Rho, Luquet went there.

As if directed by Supriès to say his lines, this French bishop told Archbishop Romilli that Pope Pius IX was eager to see founded in Lombardy a mission seminary modeled after the Paris Foreign Mission Seminary. The abundance of clergy in the Milan archdiocese and in its suffragan sees had attracted the pope’s attention and had prompted his proposal. Missionary candidates were to be drawn from the clergy of Lombardy, and it was hoped that all the bishops of Lombardy would collaborate. It was the pope’s wish, in fact, that there should be a Universal Seminary for Foreign Missions. That was Luquet’s message.

And what was Romilli’s reply? I cast myself at the feet of His Holiness! All that he need do is make his wishes known to me and I shall surely carry them out.³²

Who was Luquet? He was a Frenchman born in Langres on 17 June 1810. After obtaining a doctorate in architecture he quit the secular world, became a priest, joined the Paris Foreign Mission Seminary in 1841, and was sent to the Vicariate Apostolic of Pondicherry in India in 1842. Two years later he was sent to Rome, where on 17 February 1845 the cardinals of Propaganda Fide accepted the proposal that he championed for dividing the Pondicherry vicariate into three vicariates. The same cardinals rejected on 10 March 1845 a plan that he had helped prepare for dividing Western Australia into three ecclesiastical territories. But Pope Gregory XVI (1765–1846), a former prefect of Propaganda, overruled the decision of the cardinals and accepted Luquet’s plan on 4 May 1845. Two weeks later on 19 May the cardinals decided to ask the pope to make Luquet a bishop. The pope agreed, and Cardinal Prefect Fransoni himself was the ordaining prelate on Sunday, 7 September 1845, in Rome’s Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, better known as Chiesa Nuova. Archbishop Brunelli, secretary of Propaganda Fide, was one of the two co-consecrators.

The Paris Foreign Mission Seminary further made Luquet its procurator at the Holy See by letter of 26 January 1846. He helped Bishop Pompallier draw up his plan of 8 December 1846 for establishing the hierarchy in Western Oceania, and he helped Father Colin, superior general of the Marists, to prepare a revised plan for the Western Oceania hierarchy dated 15 May 1847. Luquet was Colin’s trusted advisor and accompanied him on 15 June 1847 during his private audience with Pius IX. Luquet also provided counsel for Bishop Guillaume Douarre, the first Marist bishop of New Caledonia, with whom he conjointly submitted a proposal to Pius IX on 10 August 1847, suggesting that New Caledonia be made a papal colony. Three months later this man of great vision and extraordinary influence was knocking at Archbishop Romilli’s door.³³

The visit of Luquet to Romilli in November 1847 prompted a publication to announce four years later that Pope Pius IX must be credited with getting the first idea for this seminary.³⁴ The information, however, cannot be correct because Supriès and Fransoni were exchanging correspondence on the first steps to be taken in launching a foreign mission seminary for Lombardy as early as April and May 1846. Pius IX was not yet pope at that time.

A few days before Pius IX was elected on 16 June 1846, the first three priests from Lombardy, who had been in contact with Supriès, arrived in Rome where they were given lodging by Cardinal Prefect Fransoni. In one of his many audiences with the new pope, the cardinal no doubt mentioned these priests, adding that many more missionaries would come from Lombardy, if it had its own foreign mission seminary. Thus Fransoni easily could have won the pope’s support for this project. Being in close contact with Luquet, Fransoni could have asked him to stop off in Milan to inform Romilli about the pope’s wish regarding the foundation of a foreign mission seminary in Lombardy.

Nor is it improbable that Luquet, prior to knocking at Romilli’s door, knocked at the door of Supriès. It would seem that this is what happened, because the project suggested by Luquet to Romilli was identical to the one that Supriès suggested to Fransoni. The Certosa di Pavia, where Supriès lived, was about fifteen miles southwest of Milan, and since Pavia was the capital city of Pavia province, Luquet’s carriage must have passed through that city on its way to Milan.

Luquet and Supriès had a number of things in common to bring them together. They were both French. Both had worked in India in Pondicherry. Supriès had earlier been a member of the Paris Foreign Mission Seminary, and Luquet was now its highest official outside Paris, having been named its procurator general at the Holy See. Luquet and Supriès were both well acquainted with Cardinal Fransoni, and both had been in contact with Colin, superior general of the Marists. Except for Propaganda Fide officials, Luquet knew more about Oceania than anyone else in Rome. He therefore may have known about Supriès’s role in the creation of the Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia and about his efforts to have Micronesia entrusted to a foreign mission seminary to be founded in Lombardy. Like other travelers, Luquet may also have wanted to see Pavia’s gem of Italian architecture, the Certosa di Pavia, especially since he happened to have a doctorate in architecture.³⁵

Developments in Europe in 1847 seemed to indicate that Lombardy’s foreign mission seminary would soon become a reality. In the South Pacific there were developments too. Successor to the late Bishop Epalle was thirty-one-year-old Bishop Jean-Georges Collomb (1816–48), a French Marist. Writing from Kororareka, New Zealand, in May 1847, the new vicar apostolic of Melanesia and Micronesia spelled out for Rome his strategy in developing his territory. All of his surviving missionaries were located on San Cristóbal Island at the southern end of the Solomon Islands. He planned to transfer some of them to Buka, an island at the northern end of the Solomon Islands, and others to Woodlark Island (now Murua) between the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. Within a year he hoped to visit additional sites for mission stations in New Ireland and New Britain, and also on the northern coast of New Guinea. By examining these locations in advance, he said, he could better provide for newly arriving personnel.

Collomb’s letter describing these plans for Cardinal Prefect Fransoni stated explicitly that he had more than enough to do in Melanesia. We earnestly desire that the Holy See should separate the Micronesia Vicariate from the Melanesia Vicariate as soon as possible. With equal earnestness he asked that the extensive Melanesia vicariate be divided into several other vicariates.³⁶

Because Bishop Collomb did not want to keep Micronesia, and because Archbishop Romilli was ready to do what he could toward founding a foreign mission seminary, it began to appear that missionaries from Lombardy might go to Micronesia after all, just as Supriès had wished.

1. The Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in Latin) was founded by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. Because the word propaganda took on negative connotations in the mid-twentieth century, it was renamed Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (Congregatio pro Evangelizatione Populorum) by Pope John Paul II in 1982. In this volume it will be referred to as Propaganda Fide or Propaganda, as it is in most historical writing.

2. PF: SC Oceania vol. 2 (1842–45, Part I), f. 464r–465v, Supriès to Fransoni, 6 April 1843; ibid., f. 504rv, Supriès to Fransoni, 18 July 1843; PF: LDB vol. 329 (1843, Part I), f. 303v–304r, Fransoni to Supriès, 27 April 1843. Abbé J. F. M. Guérin collaborated with Supriès in presenting on 24 May 1843a more detailed plan for the Micronesia vicariate. For further details on the Supriès-Guérin proposals and on the founding of the Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia, see Ralph M. Wiltgen, The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania, 1825 to 1850, 267–310. Carthusians have priors, not abbots.

3. CART: Catalogue des religieux, 148 no. 153, Dom Thaddée Supriès. This data on Supriès was supplied on 23 July 1987 by D. Luc Fauchon, archivist at La Grande-Chartreuse.

4. PF: SC Missioni vol. 21 (1844–46), f. 974r, Supriès to Fransoni, 6 April 1846.

5. See ibid., f. 944rv, Supriès to Buratti, 20 March 1846; ibid., f. 974r, Supriès to Fransoni, 6 April 1846.

6. Carlo Suigo, Pio IX e la fondazione del primo instituto missionario Italiano a Milano, 77; Beatificationis seu Declarationis Martyrii Servi Dei Ioannis Baptistae Mazzucconi sacerdotis Pontificii Instituti pro Missionibus Exteris in odium fidei, uti fertur, anno 1855 interfecti Positio super introductione causae et super martyrio ex officio concinnata, 60, 63, 430.

7. PF: SC Missioni vol. 21 (1844–46), f. 974r, Supriès to Fransoni, 6 April 1846; SM: 436, Salvioni to Colin, 16 January 1846. Supriès, not aware of Salvioni’s second companion, tells Fransoni incorrectly that two students of theology went to Lyon. Salvioni writing to Colin reminds him that they were three in number. See also n. 11.

8. SM: 436, Salvioni to Colin, 16 January 1846.

9. PIME: AME 28:747–50, Eymard to Salvioni, 8 February 1846. For extracts from this letter see Origines maristes (1786–1836), J. Coste and G. Lessard, eds., 4:62–67. See also n. 11.

10. The Italian edition, Annali della propagazione della fede, was published in Naples, Italy, and appeared in monthly installments. The twelve issues of 1846 totaled 721 pages and included reports on Oceania from Australia, Marquesas Islands, Melanesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Tonga, and Wallis.

11. PF: SC Missioni vol. 21 (1844–46), f. 944rv. See also chap. 2, n. 10.

12. Wiltgen, Oceania, 267–68. Buratti’s letter has not been located. But seventeen days was time enough for an exchange of correspondence between Pavia and Rome. The letter of Salvioni to Colin mentioned above, for example, was postmarked 17 January 1846 in Milan and on arriving in Lyon, France, was postmarked 20 January. Eymard’s reply to Salvioni was postmarked 11 February in Lyon and on arriving in Milan was postmarked 14 February.

13. Supriès had mentioned three priests and a deacon when writing to Buratti on 20 March, but by this date (6 April) another priest had joined the group.

14. PF: SC Missioni vol. 21 (1844–46), f. 974r–975v. The summary at the end of Supriès’s letter made by an official of Propaganda Fide erroneously states that ‘some priests of France were inspired by Supriès to found in Milan a congregation of missionaries called Saint Francis Xavier to go from there to the missions, specifically to Oceania." Ibid., f. 975v. See also chap. 2, n. 10.

15. Beatificationis Positio, 60, speaks of the project of a missionary institute, which was the idea of some young priests. Giovanni B. Tragella in Le missioni estere di Milano nel quadro degli avvenimenti contemporanei, 1:19f, describes the plan of a group of Lodi and Milan priests, in which a former French missionary, then Vicar of the Certosa di Pavia, figures as one who was consulted and as a counsellor. He also speaks of their missionary ideal which—who knows how?—had already taken shape as a definite plan.

16. PF: SC Missioni vol. 21 (1844–46), f. 974v–975r, Supriès to Fransoni, 6 April 1846; Beatificationis Positio, pp. XXXIX–XL, 62.

17. PF: SC Oceania vol. 2 (1842–45, Part I), f. 465r, Supriès to Fransoni, 6 April 1843; see also Wiltgen, Oceania, 268–69. When Supriès told Buratti on 20 March 1846 that the four clerics have formed the plan of uniting themselves in a congregation named after and protected by Saint Francis Xavier, his words must be understood in the context of the entire letter to Buratti and also in the context of his letter to Fransoni. He told Buratti in his letter that the clerics had been begging for months that I make it possible for them to become missionaries. PF: SC Missioni vol. 21 (1844–46), f. 944r.

18. For details on the Marists, officially known as the Society of Mary (S.M.), and on the Picpus Fathers, officially known as the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (SS.CC.), see Marists in Wiltgen, Oceania, 597, and Picpus Fathers, ibid., 601.

19. PF: LDB vol. 333 (1846, Part I), f. 451v–454r, Fransoni to Supriès; ibid., f. 462v–463r, Fransoni to Benaglia.

20. PF: SC Missioni vol. 21 (1844–46), f. 998r.

21. PF: LDB vol. 334 (1846, Part II), f. 628rv.

22. PF: SC Missioni vol. 21 (1844–46), f. 1018r.

23. Beatificationis Positio, 35, 60, 63, 430, 433–34, 436, 443.

24. Tragella, Missioni estere, 1:21–22. The activity and success of the Lodi priests shows that Tragella errs when he says of Supriès: The attempt that he made with a group of Lodi and Milan priests failed. Ibid., 1:25. The mission work of the Lodi priests in Ceylon, desired and required by Fransoni, was the first concrete step in the realization of the project.

25. Suigo, Pio IX, 42, 47.

26. Annali della propagazione della fede (December 1846), 703–21. For further details on the death of Epalle, see Wiltgen, Oceania, 336–41.

27. Beatificationis Positio, 39–40, 63–64, 443, 445; Tragella, Missioni estere, 1:23, 25; Suigo, Pio IX, 40; PIME: AME 13:893, Marietti to Marinoni, 12 June 1851. Tragella in Missioni estere, 1:25, cites this 12 June 1851 letter of Deacon Marietti to Marinoni as his source for saying that Marietti confided his desire to become a Marist to Supriès, and that Supriès stopped him from going to the Marists. But Marietti does not mention Supriès. He says that the Certosa di Pavia contributed to his missionary vocation and that he applied to the Marists for admission several times, but was not accepted. Suigo, in Beatificationis Positio, 445 n. 7, also cites the same Antonio Marietti letter (writing p. 892—it is blank—for p. 893) as his source for stating that Antonio Riva [sic] received a reply similar to that given by Pontiggia to Mazzucconi. But Riva is not mentioned in the Marietti letter, nor is anything said about a new Lombard seminary to be founded in a few years.

28. PF: SC Missioni vol. 21 (1844–46), f. 1018rv, Supriès to Fransoni, 30 June 1846.

29. Ibid., f. 1018v. Tragella in Missioni estere, 1:22, says that the project was destined to fail and that every practical step for the conceived foundation was halted. Suigo in Pio IX, 21, copying much from Tragella here, speaks of the complete collapse of the proposed seminary.

30. When liberalism and radicalism became dominant in many cantons of Switzerland in 1845, the seven Catholic cantons rallied to defend their religious liberty and formed the Sonderbund. In July 1847 the Federal Diet ordered them to dissolve this alliance, but they refused. A civil war broke out in which the Catholic cantons were defeated. Cardinal Giuseppe Bofondi, Vatican secretary of state, said that the immediate purpose of the extraordinary mission entrusted by the Holy Father to Luquet was to procure religious peace for the Catholics of Switzerland and to discover ways and means of remedying the damage done to religious and church interests by the unfortunate war. Suigo, Pio IX, 46f; René Roussel, Un précurseur: Monseigneur Luquet (1810–1858) des missions étrangères de Paris, 43f.

31. The exact date of Luquet’s visit is not known. The dates given here have been established by Suigo, Pio IX, 48.

32. Tragella, Missioni estere, 1:26f; Suigo, Pio IX, 48–51; Beatificationis Positio, 60; Gerardo Brambilla, Il pontificio istituto delle missioni estere e le sue missioni: Memorie, 1:7, 14.

33. Wiltgen, Oceania, 370f, 374, 408f, 428, 432f, 436; Roussel, Un précurseur, 31f.

34. Giuseppe Marinoni, first superior of the Lombard foreign mission seminary, made the statement in L’Amico Cattolico (November 1851). See Suigo, Pio IX, 49. The following authors write in a similar vein: Suigo, Pio IX, 44–51; Tragella, Missioni estere, 1:26f; Alfonso Bassan, Da avvocato a patriarca: Cenni biografici di Mons. Angelo Ramazzotti (1800–1861), 52; Brambilla, Pontificio istituto, 1:14; Beatificationis Positio, 60. As is evident from their works, these authors were unaware of Luquet’s important roles in the organization of the church in Oceania and of Supriès’s role in founding the Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia. They were also unaware of, or underestimated the significance of, the early correspondence between Supriès, Fransoni, and Buratti on the founding of a foreign mission seminary in Lombardy.

35. Luquet’s biographer, René Roussel, has found absolutely nothing in the personal papers and letters of Luquet regarding his proposing a seminary for Lombardy to Romilli. See his letter to Tragella of 16 August 1960 on this matter in PIME: AME 35-01 Giacomo Scurati, Memorie dell’Istituto, inside front cover. This strange silence by Luquet leaves open the possibility, or even the probability, that in this instance he was acting on his own authority or in accordance with the wishes of Supriès.

36. PF: SOCG vol. 970 (1848), f. 295rv, Collomb to Fransoni, 31 May 1847.

2

Pope Pius IX Approves Lombardy’s Seminary for Foreign Missions

21 February 1850

Italy began its war of independence against Austria on 18 March 1848 with a battle called the Five Days of Milan. In the previous month there had been a revolution in France, which had sparked revolutions against Austrian rule in Bohemia, Croatia, Hungary, and even in Austria itself. The arrival of this news in Milan between 16 and 17 March prompted its citizens to take courage the next day and start a revolution of their own.

Demanding arms and new reforms, crowds marched toward government buildings on Saturday, 18 March, waving the tricolor of Italy and shouting, Long live Italy! Long live Pius IX! A shot was fired, barricades were set up, and that first day thirty died. By evening of the third day the insurgents had the upper hand. Twice they refused to grant an armistice to eighty-one-year-old Field Marshall Graf Joseph Radetzky (1766–1858), commander of the Austrian troops. By evening of the fifth day, 22 March, the citizens had captured the last Austrian stronghold, forcing Radetzky and his troops to flee around 9 p.m. At dawn on 23 March the city gates were thrown open, and Milan joyously celebrated its liberation from Austrian rule.¹ The fervor of the revolution caught up in its path all young men of Milan, including seminarians, causing some of them to join the battalion of students in the Piedmont army of King Charles Albert (1798–1849). In fact, the battalion’s fourth company was made up entirely of seminarians from various parts of Lombardy. One of the soldier-seminarians was Carlo Salerio (1827–70). While in action at Mantova on 14 July 1848, he was serving as standard-bearer when the king passed by to inspect his troops. Stopping before Salerio, the king gave him a pat on the shoulder and said, You [seminarians] are the angels of my army. In the same battalion was Subdeacon Reina, friend of Salerio, who earlier had written to Bishop de Mazenod in France about going to the foreign missions. During the Five Days of Milan, Reina had been involved in putting up barricades in the city. A month later, when a committee of theologian seminarians volunteered their services to Italian authorities, his name appeared second on the list. These volunteers became the company of seminarians in the battalion of students.²

But liberty for Milan was short-lived, because on 6 August 1848 Radetzky and his troops reconquered the city. On 23 March 1849, the first anniversary of Milan’s liberation, the Piedmont forces of King Charles Albert were defeated at Novara. The king had decided to fight against Austria single-handed, even though other European powers had advised against the war. On 6 August 1849, the first anniversary of Radetzky’s triumphant return to Milan, he forced the Piedmont plenipotentiaries to sign a treaty of peace with Austria. By this time Charles Albert had gone into voluntary exile to Portugal; there he died three weeks after the treaty was signed.³

Radetzky had requisitioned the seminary buildings in both Milan and Monza on 6 August 1848 for lodging his troops. When the refectory of the seminary in Milan was left unoccupied, church authorities used it for giving a semblance of classes in the daytime to seminarians living in the city. Those living beyond the city limits received private tutoring and spiritual direction from their parish priests. When the seminary buildings were returned by Radetzky