The Reggiano Mons. Scapinelli 110 years ago was appointed Apostolic Nuncio in Vienna by Pope Pius X. The memory of Giuseppe Rossi
The 110th anniversary of the election of Msgr. Raffaele Scapinelli of the counts of Leguigno as titular archbishop of Laodicea and his simultaneous appointment as apostolic nuncio to the imperial court of Vienna, ordered by Pope Saint Pius X, of which he was a close collaborator, on January 27, 1912.
Announcing the two prestigious appointments, the Reggio newspaper “L’Azione Cattolica” highlighted the high human qualities of the Reggio bishop: His exquisite kindness, the spontaneous and innate nobility of his trait, the candid and modest kindness have earned him general affection in the Vatican and in Rome, where everyone speaks of Monsignor Scapinelli with the most affectionate reverence. And it was precisely his singular modesty that made him flee from the very high offices that even before had been insistently offered to him. For some time he could have been nuncio to Vienna itself and to Madrid. But he was able to insist so much that the Holy Father, who loves him tenderly, did not want to afflict him. This time, however, he could not escape the heavy weight, his prayers broke against the will of the Holy Father who finally wanted his rare gifts of intelligence, prudence and piety to be consecrated in a wider field to good. of the church. And he obeyed.
His nunciature in Vienna coincided with the outbreak of the First World War, theuseless ploy; The tenacious commitment of the apostolic nuncio Scapinelli – according to pontifical directives – for peace and to avoid entering into war with Italy is known and documented.
The recurrence of the appointment as archbishop of the future illustrious cardinal from Reggio could be the right occasion to remember him worthily in the Cathedral of Reggio Emilia with a plaque that perpetuates his memory and underlines his work; as it was done for the other cardinal from Reggio of the century. XX, Sergio Pignedoli. The town toponymy already remembers it in the square in front of the church of Saints James and Philip.
Born in Modena on 25 April 1858, Scapinelli attended the schools of the Urban Seminary in Reggio between 1865 and 1874, completing his theological studies at the age of only twenty. He celebrated his first Mass on September 24, 1881 in the parish church of Santi Giacomo e Filippo, in the territory of which the paternal house stood in via San Domenico. Founder of the “Reggianello”, he was professor of canon law in the episcopal seminary. Then in 1887 his passage to Rome, where he attended the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. In 1889 he began his career as a diplomat: apostolic annex in Paris, then secretary of the apostolic nunciature in Lisbon; then listen to the apostolic internunciation in The Hague and finally a skilled apostolic in Madrid. From 1897 he undertook the activity at the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs and also became a professor of diplomatic style in the Pontifical Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles. In 1912 Pius X appointed him archbishop and at the same time apostolic nuncio in Vienna, a position he held until 1916. The episcopal consecration was conferred on Scapinelli on February 26, 1912 in the Vatican in the chapel of Countess Matilde di Canossa by cardinal secretary of state Rafael Merry del Val.
Nuncio Scapinelli also had to face the problem of building the new seat of the nunciature; but given his innate modesty he did not want to mention his name on the commemorative plaque which he had placed in the new building. Mons. Raffaele also experienced the drama of the First World War, making himself the bearer of a message from Pope Benedict XV to the Emperor of Austria to avoid Italy’s entry into the conflict.
Created cardinal by Benedict XV in the consistory of 6 December 1915, he definitively left the see of Vienna for Rome on 26 November 1916. In the consistory of 7 December 1916 he received the presbyteral title of San Girolamo degli Schiavoni “ad Illyricos”.
On that occasion the diocese of Reggio Emilia gave him a gift of a chalice and a paten in gilded silver.
He was prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, a position he held until 1920. Despite his many Roman commitments, Cardinal Scapinelli always maintained contact with our diocese; on 30 April 1922 the first diocesan Eucharistic Congress solemnly closed in Reggio Emilia. Often in the summer he went to vacation in the ancestral castle of Leguigno. On 22 July 1930 he was appointed Cardinal Dater of the Holy Roman Church; despite the high office, shy of honors, he kept the humility, modesty and austerity that had always distinguished him.
In the two-year period 1909-1910, his contacts with the Reggiano Mons. Emilio Cottafavi, whom Pope Pius X had appointed in January 1909 as his delegate for the reconstruction of Reggio Calabria after the terrifying earthquake of December 28, 1908.
Cardinal Scapinelli was the maternal uncle of Msgr. Antonio Fornaciari, parish priest of San Giacomo from 1932 to 1976. The parish archive preserves a precious letter dated November 3, 1931, in which Don Antonio, who was then in Rome next to his uncle and who was looking for a brilliant career in the Vatican, with great sincerity and frankness he communicated to him – calling him “Eminenza Reverendissima” – the reasons that had led him to compete for the Reggio parish of San Giacomo, despite having applied for a position as a “writer” at the Holy Office. The letter demonstrates, in the delicacy of the tones used towards the cardinal, the marked pastoral sensitivity of “Don Tonino”, his vocation to work in a parish that he already knew in direct contact “with the people and above all the desire for ministry to pro ‘ of souls “; and he added: “the life of the Priest is that of the Ministry. Only the desire to do good to souls, and nothing else, pushed me to this ”.
Cardinal Scapinelli died after a long illness on September 16, 1933. He was buried in Rome at the Verano cemetery in the tomb of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. An effective portrait of the cardinal was drawn in 1950 by the canon Carlo Lindner in the precious volume “Our priests”.
Giuseppe Adriano Rossi