Tivoli (Italy). On 1 October 2022, at the Sanctuary of O.L. of Fatima in San Vittorino Romano, in the province of Rome, the Eucharistic Celebration took place on the occasion of the closing of the Diocesan Phase of Beatification and Canonization of the Servant of God Msgr. Giuseppe Cognata, (1885-1972), of the Pious Society of St. Francis de Sales, Titular Bishop of Farsalo, former Bishop of Bova, and Founder of the Institute of the Salesian Oblates of the Sacred Heart, whose mortal remains rest in the chapel of their Generalate in Vicolo Ciaccia in Tivoli.
The celebration was presided over by the Bishop of the Diocese of Tivoli and Palestrina, Msgr. Mauro Parmeggiani, with the presence of other priests belonging to the Diocesan Tribunal: Fr. Gaetano Maria Saccà, Episcopal Delegate; Fr. Massimo Sebastiani, Promotor of Justice; Deacon Luigi De Giusti; and Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, SDB, Postulator General for the Causes of Saints of the Salesian Family.
Various members of the Salesian Family were present, including the Rector Major emeritus, Fr. Pascual Chavez Villanuva; Sr. Leslie Sandigo, General Councilor for the Salesian Family; Sr. Lucrecia Uribe and Sr. Gabriela Patiño, World Delegates of the Associations of Salesian Cooperators (ASSCC) and of the FMA Past Pupils; Mrs. Maria Carmen Castellon, President of the FMA Past Pupils World Confederation; and Mr. Antonio Boccia, World Coordinator of the ASSCC.
In his homily the Bishop underlined the coincidence of the day on which the Church commemorates Saint Therese of Lisieux, to whom the Salesian Giuseppe Cognata was devoted, “He certainly breathed her fascination and who then shared with her, in a certain sense, her fate. The fate of the oblation, of the offering of oneself to the love of God, that abandonment to Him and to His infinite mercy which in the life of each one even if ill, like the young Therese who died of tuberculosis at only twenty-four years of age, slandered, opposed, misunderstood as it was for Teresina in the cloistered monastery of Lisieux into which she so desired to enter from an early age, He is the only one to give peace. A peace that is not the removal of problems, forgetfulness of what is happening, but total trust in the one Love that saves, embraces, understands and supports, and instills peace in the heart”.
At the end of the Holy Mass, the last closing session of the Diocesan Process for the Canonization of the Servant of God took place, presided over by Msgr. Parmeggiani.
Sr. Graziella Maria Benghini, Mother General of the Salesian Oblate Sisters of the Sacred Heart, one of the Groups of the Salesian Family, thanked for the consent that Pope Francis expressed to the requests of religious and lay people who implored the opening of the Cause for the Beatification of the Bishop of Bova. “At this moment, many faces pass in front of me, so many stories of those who have waited so long for this moment. (…) In this painful, suffered history, but certainly marked by the will of the Lord, many people have supported the journey to this day with prayer and action”.
Msgr. Mauro Parmeggiani concluded the ceremony by thanking for the style of holiness of Msgr. Cognata, “a next-door saint, who serves as a stimulus for all the faithful of the Diocese of Tivoli to assume in prayer and silent offering as a bloodless martyrdom, the cross that so often touches our existence”.
In the afternoon, the documentary film on the Servant of God was shown, followed by the prayer of the Rosary at the beginning of the month of the missions and of the Rosary.
