At Rome, Blessed Peter of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Casani, priest of the Order of Clerics Regular of the Pious Schools, who used his gifts of nature and grace for the education of children, glad only to serve the Lord in little ones.
Lifespan: 1572–1647
Beatified: 1 October 1995 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 17 October
“Patience and prayer can accomplish much.”
Peter of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Casani was born in Lucca on 8 September 1572 to parents of ancient noble lineage, prosperous and very devout. His father, left a widower, at first remained with his son; then when Pietro decided in 1594, at the age of twenty-two, to enter the Congregation of the Mother of God — founded in Lucca by Saint Giovanni Leonardi (1541–1609) — his father Gaspare Casani also decided to join it in 1610 as a lay brother.
The holy founder formed a favorable impression of the young man, having observed the austerity of his life, his broad learning, and his docile character — to the point that even while Pietro was still a cleric he chose him as his collaborator.
Indeed, Pietro Casani served as a careful recorder of the visitations carried out by Saint Giovanni Leonardi at the behest of Pope Clement VIII to the Congregation of Montevergine and to the monks of Vallombrosa. The holy founder likewise availed himself of Pietro Casani’s collaboration in drafting the Constitutions of his new Institute.
He remained in the Congregation of the Mother of God for twenty-three years. In 1614, Pope Paul V approved the merger of the Luccese congregation with the Pious Schools directed by Saint Joseph Calasanz (1588–1648), a Spanish priest who had settled in Rome, where he had founded them in 1597.
But the merger of the two Institutes was not a happy one: their aims and methods of apostolate differed considerably. The Pious Schools regarded instruction as the primary ministry, with a vow of poverty; whereas the Luccese congregation, dedicated to priestly ministry, considered the school a secondary instrument of apostolate ordered toward the salvation of souls, and was opposed to the vow of poverty.
Accordingly, in 1617, after a three-year coexistence during which enrollment also declined — from the 1,200 pupils reached in 1614 under Pietro Casani’s rectorship at the Institute of San Pantaleo of the Pious Schools in Rome to approximately 1,000 in 1617, for want of the teaching staff that had been hoped to arrive in abundance from the Luccese congregation — the Pope, at the common request of both parties, dissolved the union. He granted the status of a Congregation to the sons of Calasanz, naming it the “Pauline Congregation of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools,” which in 1621 would become the Order of the Pious Schools.
Members of both congregations were given the opportunity to make their own choice. Casani — together with some novices and lay brothers, drawn above all by the charism of the vow of poverty (he would come to be called “Peter the Poor”) — passed definitively into the Pious Schools.
He placed himself under the guidance of the founder, Saint Joseph Calasanz, having clearly grasped the charism of the Piarists (Scolopi), as the members of the Institute were called: to save the young through the school.
Together with the founder he received the religious habit and took the name Peter of the Nativity of Mary in 1617. He served as rector of the Schools of San Pantaleo in Rome, master of novices, teacher of philosophy and theology, and later as assistant general and visitor of the colleges. He was Calasanz’s principal collaborator in the spread of the Pious Schools in Italy and Germany.
After a bitter disappointment in Sicily — where, although he had already established a house with some novices in Messina, he failed to obtain a license from the Curia, above all due to the opposition of the Jesuits, who were already present with their schools on the island — he moved on 14 April 1627 to Naples.
For the city of Naples this proved a providential choice, giving rise to a widespread renewal of interest — from the common people to the nobility — in the condition of the poor. He assumed the role of Rector of the Casa della Duchesca, already founded by Calasanz, and roused the enthusiasm of religious and private individuals who sought to furnish the house with premises better suited to educational, religious, and recreational activities. Part of it would later be converted into the Church of the Annunciation, subsequently known as the Church of Saint Anne. During his provincialate in Naples, the school was staffed by thirty religious and attended by six hundred pupils; Piarist vocations rose to fifty-seven. He enjoyed the singular privilege of acting as a peacemaker, called upon in disputes among many noble and powerful families.
During his years in Naples he worked strenuously to spread the Pious Schools throughout southern Italy, founding houses at Bisignano in 1627 and Campi Salentina in 1628. In Naples he also established several lay congregations to promote Christian charity: the Congregation of the Purification for merchants, one for artisans, one for adults and young people, and one for nobles. In the footsteps of this poor and austere religious, the Piarist fathers who have worked and continue to work in Naples have carried on the Congregation’s mission in the great Calasanzian Institute, situated alongside the archdiocesan palace, in other institutes throughout the city and its province, and in a parish church.
As a result of the historical controversies of that era — which brought Galileo Galilei and the Medici of Florence to the fore, and above all owing to the disputes, slanders, and thirst for power of one of their confrères, Father Mario Sozzi — Pietro Casani was deposed by the Tribunal of the Inquisition. Together with Calasanz and the other Assistant Generals, he accepted this ruling with admirable patience and fortitude. He remained at Calasanz’s side during the most painful moments for the Order of the Pious Schools, which on 17 March 1646, following various inquisitorial visitations, was reduced to the status of a simple Congregation, with permission for its members to transfer to other Orders.
He died on 17 October 1647 in Rome at the house of San Pantaleo, attended by Calasanz, who would himself die ten months later. His remains rest beside those of Calasanz and the Venerable Glicerio Landriani in the same Roman house.
Pope John Paul II beatified Peter of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Casani on 1 October 1995.