Artemides Zatti — Canonization 2022

Artemides Zatti (1880–1951) was an Italian-born Salesian lay brother who served as a nurse and pharmacist in Viedma, Argentina. As a young man he contracted tuberculosis while caring for a sick priest; a Salesian nurse urged him to pray to Mary Help of Christians, promising that if healed he would devote his life to the sick. Zatti made the promise and was healed. He later said: 'I believed, I promised, I was healed.' He kept that promise for decades, running the Salesian hospital in Viedma and caring for the poor. In April 2022, Pope Francis approved a second miracle attributed to Zatti's intercession—a healing that the Vatican Medical Board and theologians had investigated and deemed medically inexplicable. The beneficiary attended the canonization on October 9, 2022, and received a special greeting from the Pope at an audience with Salesian pilgrims the day before. Zatti became the first Salesian coadjutor brother to be declared a saint.

The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints employs medical experts and theologians who must affirm that a cure is inexplicable by current medical knowledge before a miracle is approved. Pope Francis approved the miracle on April 9, 2022, after this investigation. The beneficiary's presence at the canonization—and the Pope's public greeting to 'the person who received the grace of healing through the intercession of the Blessed' at the Salesian pilgrims' audience—provides a living witness. Zatti's own healing from tuberculosis, which launched his vocation, is documented in his biography and in the Pope's homily. The canonization was widely reported by Catholic News Agency, Vatican News, and the Vatican press office. Zatti is the first Salesian coadjutor to be canonized.