Twelve thousand kilometers separate the town of Boretto, in the Province of Reggio-Emilia, Italy, from the city of Bahia Blanca, in the southern part of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Like millions of families at the time, the “Zatti” emigrated to America in search of better living conditions. A new landscape, a new culture, and a new language welcomed a young Artemide, a saint who lived some of the dreams and hardships, the longings and joys, experienced by every migrant who leaves their homeland.
Millions in search of a better future
In the second half of the 19th century, the Italian social system and agrarian structure underwent a serious crisis that affected small farmers and sharecroppers. The shift from the countryside to the city caused by industrialization, together with the concentration of rural property and the growth of poverty, pushed Italian farmers to emigrate to America.
Of the 52 million Europeans who emigrated between 1830 and 1930, about 11 million landed in Latin America: most came from northern Italy and Spain. Almost half of them, about 5 million Italians, settled in Argentina.
Boretto, a small farming town on the Po River, was also affected by the agrarian crisis. And the Zatti family suffered from economic difficulties. From an early age all family members, including the children, went to work in the fields. The older children and other family members worked as laborers or farmhands to earn bread and porridge: “Born into a poor home, where there were many mouths and little income, it was necessary to work if one wanted to live,” summed up Salesian Fr. Raúl Entraigas, Zatti’s main biographer.
Like the rest of his family, Artemide led the poor life of hard-working and self-sacrificing peasants. And like other Italians, he saw America as a way out. Information from relatives who were already on this continent was enthusiastic. In particular, his uncle Giovanni Zatti, who had settled in Bahía Blanca, was acting as a “callback.”
Migratory chains, networks of acquaintances, and ethnic and religious identity made it possible to channel news, discover job opportunities, and take advantage of the few resources available. Friends and relatives already residing in the “promised land” initiated these chains. Thus, in early 1897, the Zatti family set sail for Argentina. Artemide was 16 years old.
Bonds and faith to feel at home
Once they arrived in America, the Italian immigrants, the vast majority of whom were agricultural workers, engaged in a variety of activities that allowed them to earn a living or, at best, achieve a slight social uplift. The Zatti arrived in Argentina on February 7 and settled in Bahía Blanca, then a small town in the south of the province of Buenos Aires.
The support of family members and the solidarity of social networks, such as mutual aid societies and Church action, facilitated the migrants’ inclusion in social, cultural, and productive life. Don Bosco’s Salesians, many of whom were also Italians, facilitated this inclusion in local society.
As part of this migratory chain, Artémide serves as an advisor to newcomers to the country: “I heard that cousin Iginio arrived from Italy, or rather, from the unforgettable Boretto. From the distant lands of Patagonia, I wish him good luck (…) Advise him not to let himself be trapped (applies to everyone) by that master who makes people work even on holidays, under the pretext of necessity, saying and putting into practice what he will have already heard, that in America everything is allowed as long as one earns money.”
The Zatti’s, a religious family, accustomed to the practices of peasant piety, were frequent visitors to the parish of Boretto. Once in Argentina, Artemidé, like all his brethren, joined parish life and soon became an assiduous participant in activities organized by the Salesians. From his contact with the Salesians, his religious vocation and desire to become a Salesian was born.
With the memory of the homeland
Migrants, even those who joined “welcoming” societies such as the Zatti in the late 19th century, experienced poverty and uncertainty. While trying to maintain ties with their place of origin, they built new ties locally to make their way. Through an intermediary, Artemidé got in touch with his parish priest in Boretto and sent greetings to all his fellow villagers: “I have written to Boretto, to Father Costante Solian, asking for certificates of Baptism and Confirmation. He has already sent them to me, taking care to send greetings to all of you and to the ‘Borettans’ who live in Bahía Blanca.”
In Artemide’s life, we can see his resilience in the face of adversity in his new life context: precarious work, incomplete studies, severe health difficulties, and uncertainty about the future. Yet, in the face of all this, he was able to recover. Finally, in 1914, he obtained a “citizenship card” as a citizen of the Argentine Republic. Only in 1934, on the occasion of Don Bosco’s canonization, did he return to Italy and visit his native town.
I believed, I promised, I was healed
Zatti’s Christian faith began with his baptism in Boretto, near Reggio Emilia, in the basilica of San Marco on the same day of his birth, October 12, 1880.
In 1897 the Zatti-Vecchi family moved to Argentina to start a new life. They arrived in Bahía Blanca, where Uncle Luigi found them a house and the opportunity to work. On weekends they went to the parish of Our Lady of Mercede, animated by the Salesians. There young Artemis was able to deepen his faith in Jesus and get to know Don Bosco, and because of this witness, he decided to become a Salesian.
He went to Bernal to begin Salesian aspirancy, where he studied and worked enthusiastically. Unfortunately, while caring for a Salesian with tuberculosis, he also contracted the disease. The contagion was inevitable, but in spite of everything, he went on.
He arrived in Viedma to relieve the pains of his illness. There he met Fr. Evasio Garrone, a doctor, who invited him to make a promise to Mary Help of Christians to obtain his recovery, namely a commitment to devote his life to the care of the sick in the nascent “San José” Hospital in Viedma.
Artemis’ response was categorical: “I believed, I promised, I was healed,” as the Flores del Campo newspaper also reported on May 3, 1915.
Believing in Mary’s intercession for his healing was a simple act of faith filled with filial love. Promising was a courageous act of trust in Providence and dedication to caring for the sick. The healing was the result of the act of faith and trust that led Artemide Zatti to be with those most in need until his death.
“Prayer was like the breath of his soul”
This fact is the turning point for understanding Zatti’s enormous work during the years he lived in Viedma. With faith he endured illness and directed his vocation, which he nurtured daily in union with God, from five in the morning until the last hours of the day.
Msgr. Carlos Mariano Pérez was the Salesian Provincial of the last years of Zatti’s life. His testimony about Zatti’s life of faith demonstrates his inner life:
“He loved God with all his heart, with all his mind and with all his strength. Prayer was like the breath of his soul, and he was convinced that he had the omnipotence of God in his hands.”
“Although material problems kept him anxious and worried, he always put the eternal before temporal things. He knew Holy Scripture and savored it, as well as the lives of the saints and ascetic treatises. All this he knew how to radiate by his example and words.”
“He was a true catechist who offered the image of a man raised in the faith, capable of transmitting a sincere and disinterested faith in Christ. The poorest sick people, the most difficult cases, or patients with the most repulsive diseases, were for him the true lightning rods of San Jose Hospital. In his mind and heart he had very clear the words of Jesus: ‘Whenever you have done these things to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you have done it to me’ (Mt. 25:40).”
Zatti, handwriting
In a letter that Artemide Zatti wrote in 1914 from Viedma to his relatives in Bahía Blanca, he expressed in a simple and direct way the steps he was taking in his life of faith, which, as Romano Guardini reminds us, is the story of a believer, in a concrete personality. Here is what the letter says:
“Pray for me, who have so many needs in order to fulfill the mission that the good God in His infinite mercy has deigned to entrust to me; I do this for you every day. And with great fervor, when I think that the present life is short, very short!
hat of yesterday’s sufferings we have no more memory (sweet memory when one suffers for the Lord) and that the reward that awaits us is great, very great, for it is God Himself!… Sometimes I get inexplicable anguish when I think that we might lose it because of us!… But armed with faith, let us fight the Lord’s battle, and the Lord will make us deserve an eternal reward!”
(Zatti’s Letters, No. 106, Salesian Historical Archives of Southern Argentina, Bahía Blanca Section)
We are in Viedma, around 1940. For a few years now, Salesian coadjutor Artemide Zatti has been the soul of the “San José” hospital that the Salesians have been running since the end of the 19th century in this city in Argentina’s Patagonia. A place where the care of life is not limited to physical health but is offered to people in an integral way … to all people.
A poor sharecropper had been hospitalized for several months. He was grateful for what Artemide Zatti had done for his health and for his whole person – without asking for anything since he was unable to pay. He wants to express his gratitude to him. Not knowing how to do so, he tells him, “Thank you for everything, Mr. Zatti. I salute you and extend many greetings to your wife as well, although I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her….” “Neither have I,” Zatti replied, laughing.
In big things, one can pretend. In small things, one shows oneself as one is. And in this answer, we can trace something of Br. Zatti’s life and heart.
Neighbor, Brother
Zatti had had to experience uprooting, emigration, the economic constraints that force him to stop studying to work, the difficulties in making his way in his community. All aspects that are symptoms of poverty… and this, paradoxically, will help him understand the pains and needs of the poor.
Living his Salesian vocation as a Salesian “coadjutor” or “brother” facilitates this closeness. Don Bosco thinks of Salesian Coadjutors as having a close educational presence among young people and in working-class sectors. He does this in a social context, that of Italy at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, in which there is a lack of empathy on the part of the people toward anything “conventual” or “cloistered.”
This simplicity and the absence of ecclesiastical “forms” in the Salesian Coadjutors – which is not only about the habit or the tasks one performs, but also about the way of thinking, of looking at the world by understanding it as a place where the Kingdom of God grows and develops – allows them to be close and to be one more among others, and to reach out even to environments and people who, otherwise, would be far from the faith.
Thus, this vocation of the Salesian Coadjutor will refer not so much to what one can or cannot do, but how to be in the doing. Thus, many times we find coadjutors doing tasks or proposals that are not usual in Salesian activity, as it was for Br. Zatti to be a nurse.
Zatti’s vocation as a Salesian coadjutor is not the result of a lack or shortage because “he has no other choice,” given the tuberculosis he had suffered while in the Salesian seminary in Bernal prevented him from continuing his dream of being a Salesian priest. Rather, based on that circumstance, he finds another way to develop his life and his desire to serve and be happy. As is often the case, out of pain and limitation can emerge a surplus of love and much broader horizons than foreseen.
This closeness of Br. Zatti also expresses itself in another detail: he continues to move around on a bicycle. They offered to buy him a car, to move “faster” and “reach more people,” to be more effective – an offer he always refused. He prefers his bicycle, which allows him to stop and spend time with people.
With joy
Dr. Ecay, a doctor at the hospital, once asked him, “Br. Zatti, how is it you’re always in a good mood?” To which Zatti replied, “It’s easy, doctor: swallow bitter and spit out sweet.”
Having a cheerful face and responding with humor, even in the most difficult circumstances, comes from a heart that is at peace with God and feels loved by Him, that knows how to relativize situations, identifying the essential.
Perhaps Br. Zatti could have answered with an argument focused on the theology of religious life to that person sending his greetings to his wife… but his response was different. Understanding also that the vocation of the Salesian coadjutor is a bit more unknown and misunderstood, sometimes even with a lack of social recognition given the value society has of the figure of the priest. But this does not worry or sadden Zatti. He understands that what is essential continues to be the “people” – Da mihi animas, caetera tolle – and their well-being, and he devotes himself to them.
The nurses who would sometimes catch him at 5:30 a.m., before prayer with the Salesian community, prostrate in the chapel with his face pressed to the floor in deep prayer, know where Zatti found the strength to continue on the sometimes bumpy and difficult path of service to others.
In community
There was always an excellent team at the hospital, which Zatti formed in his own image. Other Salesians and Daughters of Mary Help of Christians worked there, as well as several doctors and nurses. In everyone, the initial motivation was to be able to help those most in need with professionalism and an integral vision of the human being. And, from Zatti’s perspective, to help those who worked with him grow in faith.
One doctor, who had serious doubts about his faith, even said, “Here, in front of Zatti, my disbelief wavers… if there are saints on earth, he is one of them. When I am about to take the scalpel in the operating room and I see him helping in the operations, with his wisdom as a nurse and with the rosary in his hand, the atmosphere is filled with something supernatural….”
The prayer invoking Br. Zatti’s intercession reads, “May the joy of seeing him shining in the Heaven of your saints help us to witness your Light.” May his life as a follower of Jesus in the style of Don Bosco encourage us all to know how to reexamine our path and, in our respective vocations and professions, to allow ourselves to be shaped by God in our daily actions.
Zatti fell off a ladder on 19 July 1950 as he climbed to the roof to fix a water tank.[2] He recovered in the hospital where he was not long after diagnosed with liver cancer after his livid skin color was assessed.[2][3 He remained in the hospital from January 1951 until his death.
Zatti died due to liver cancer on 15 March 1951 in Videma. His remains were housed in a Salesian chapel in Viedma.[2]
Originally published in the Salesian Bulletin of Argentina.
