Giovanni Battista Scalabrini

Giovanni Battista Scalabrini was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate and the Bishop of Piacenza from 1876 until his death; he was the founder of both the Missionaries of Saint Charles and the Mission Sisters of Saint Charles. Scalabrini's rise to the episcopate came at a rapid pace after giving a series of lectures on the First Vatican Council in 1872 and his staunch dedication to catechism which led Pope Pius IX to dub him as the "Apostle of the Catechism"; successive popes Leo XIII and Pius X held him in incredible esteem and both failed to convince him accept archdioceses or the cardinalate. He made five pastoral visits across his diocese which proved to be an exhaustive but effective mission of evangelization and his efforts at reforming seminaries and pastoral initiatives earned him praise even from the secular detractors who criticized him for his strict obedience to the pope.