During the Audience granted to His Eminence Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the Supreme Pontiff authorized the same Dicastery to promulgate the Decree concerning the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Anthony Pagani (né Marco), priest of the Order of Friars Minor and founder of the Sisters Dimesse Daughters of Mary Immaculate, born in Venice (Italy) in 1526 and died on January 4, 1589 in Vicenza (Italy).
Marco Pagani (Venice 1526), having obtained a degree in civil and canon law, after an initial experience among the Barnabites he passed among the Friars Minor Observant in 1557 assuming the name of Anthony. A man of culture, canonist and theologian, he dedicated his fruitful apostolate as a priest (1551) to preaching, teaching and publishing writings. He participated as a theologian in the Council of Trent alongside the Minister General of the Order, Fr. Francesco Zamora. He nurtured a deep zeal for the glory of God and the good of the Church, always maintaining a simple, austere, humble lifestyle. He actively collaborated in the work of reform promoted by the Council for a return to the evangelical simplicity of the origins, to stem the relaxation of customs and to refute heresies. He was particularly attentive to the role of the laity in evangelization and for them he founded the Company of the Brothers of the Cross and the Company of Dimesse. The latter, which arose in Vicenza in 1579 as part of the Franciscan Third Order with the collaboration of Deianira Valmarana, are still active today in the Church under the name of Suore Dimesse Daughters of Mary Immaculate and constitute the most significant spiritual legacy of the Servant of God.
Father Anthony Pagani spent the last years of his life in the Franciscan hermitages of the Venetian region to be ever more intimately united with the Lord in contemplation. He died in the convent of St Blaise in Vicenza on January 4, 1589. The long Cause of Beatification, started in 1615, today reaches the well-deserved goal of recognizing the heroic virtues, attesting to the authentic fame of holiness which, defying the centuries, has always accompanied the Venerable.
