austraLasia 994
Cimatti: Past Pupils in Faenza take up the running to promote the Cause
FAENZA (Northern Italy): 11th January 2005 -- The Venerable Mons. Vincent Cimatti, native of Faenza, left that wonderful centre of Italian culture to become a Salesian in the late 1890's. His Salesian journey took him to Turin, initially, but then to Japan with eight other Salesians to found the Salesian mission there. Other than an occasional visit, he never really returned to Faenza, but the Past Pupils of Don Bosco from that city have not forgotten their famous and saintly compatriot, as witnessed by events over these days, organised completely by them, since there is no longer a Salesian Institute in Faenza.
Fr Gaetano Compri, likewise a citizen of Faenza is also a missionary in Japan and now the Japanese-based Promoter of the Cause for Cimatti's canonisation. He has returned at the invitation of the Past Pupils and with the support of the local Bishop. The aim is to promote knowledge and love of Faenza's famous missionary son.
Fr Compri, between 9-12 January, is speaking at a number of public venues in Faenza and nearby Ravenna. His topic is the grand personage that Vincent Cimatti was in human and cultural terms as well as in terms of Salesian holiness.
Cimatti, born 15th July 1879, died in Japan on 6th October 1965. Pope John Paul II declared him Venerable on 21st December 1991. It is the hope of the Salesian Family worldwide, but especially in Faenza Italy, and in Miyazaki Japan, that Cimatti will soon be beatified. It was in Miyazaki that the Holy See asked Cimatti to be the Vicar Apostolic with title of Monsignor; it was there too that he established the first Salesian presence and was instrumental in asking Fr Cavoli to found the Charity Sisters of Miyazaki.
Fr Compri has so much that he can say about Cimatti, since he is the curator of the museum dedicated to him in Chofu (Tokyo),a museum full of collections of all kinds, botanical, geological and cultural, of Cimatti's. Cimatti completed two degrees from Italian Universities, particularly in music. He wrote more than a thousand pieces and composed an Opera, the first truly Japanese opera (with an obvious Italian influence) titled Hosakawa Grazia, performed recently in Tokyo's Grand Opera Hall. As a Salesian Cimatti 'translated' Don Bosco's preventive system into the immediate post-Don Bosco period in Italy and then in Japan, teaching it not so much by writing books or even literally translating it into Japanese, but by living it in such an extraordinary way that all who knew him were convinced of his holiness and of the fruits of the 'system'.
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