Background
Guido Maria Conforti was born in 1865 to Rinaldo Conforti and Antonia Adorni as the eighth of ten children.
archbishop bishop Catholic priest
Guido Maria Conforti was born in 1865 to Rinaldo Conforti and Antonia Adorni as the eighth of ten children.
He attended elementary school from 1872 and each day on his way to the school he would stop by the church of Santa Maria della Pace where he used to have conversations in his parish church with the crucified Jesus Christ.
He was known to make frequent visits to his parishes and worked to support the religious education and religious involvement among the youth. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1996 and he was canonized in 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI. This was when his vocation manifested, and he later recalled: "I looked at Him and He looked at me and seemed to say so many things". At the time, his rector was Andrea Carlo Ferrari, future cardinal and Blessed.
Their relationship became a friendship.
He was finally ordained to the priesthood on 22 September 1888 in Parma. After his priestly ordination, Conforti served as a professor at the seminary where he studied and he later became the vice-rector of the seminary.
He became the Vicar-General of Parma on 7 March 1896. At this time, in 1899, he sent the first missionaries to China.
Leo XIII appointed him as the Archbishop of Ravenna on 9 June 1902 following the death of Cardinal Agostino Gaetano Riboldi, and he later submitted his resignation to a reluctant Pope Pius X due to his ill health in October 1904.
The next month, on 14 November, he was made both the Coadjutor Bishop of Parma and the Titular Archbishop of Stauropolis. In 1907 he became the Archbishop of Parma and he was known to travel to all parishes via horseback or other means to inspect his new archdiocese. He arrived in Shanghai on 26 October 1928 and met with his contacts to inspect their work.
Conforti returned to Parma soon after his visit to China and fell ill in October 1931.
He died a month later and he was interred in Parma. His tomb was later relocated in 1942 and once more in 1996.
The cause of sainthood was introduced in Parma on 29 May 1959 under Pope John XXIII and the work done on a diocesan level culminated on 11 February 1982 with Conforti being declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II on account of his life of heroic virtue. A tribunal for a miracle needed for his beatification opened and closed in 1993 and John Paul II recognized the healing as a miracle on 6 April 1995.
lieutenant led to his beatification on 17 March 1996.
A second tribunal for a miracle needed for canonization opened on 4 October 2005 and closed on 16 November 2005 and Pope Benedict XVI signed the decree for the miracle on 10 December 2010, leading to his canonization on 23 October 2011.