Sisto Riario Sforza

House

Sisto Riario Sforza was born in Naples on 5 December 1810 into the noble Riario-Sforza House as the second of two sons to Duke Giovanni Antonio Riario Sforza and Maria Gaetana Cattaneo della Volta; his single sibling was Nicola Giovanni.^[2] His noble house was related to the Caracciolo house as well as the Colonna and Boncompagni families. He was a nephew to the Cardinal Tommaso Riario Sforza with his ancestors Pietro Riario (a Franciscan) as well as Raffaele Riario and Alessandro Riario all cardinals as well.^[3][4]

Sforza's baptism was celebrated on the date of his birth in the San Giorgio Genovesi church and he was baptized with the names "Sisto Gaetano Ambrosio". He received the sacrament of Confirmation on 11 February 1822 in Naples.^[3]

Education and priesthood

He decided to enter the ecclesial life in late 1824 and so had to move to Rome where he would be educated under the watch of his cardinal uncle.

He spent his education in Rome first at the Pontifical Roman Major before attending the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Institute and the La Sapienza college where he went on to obtain a theological doctorate through an apostolic brief on 23 April 1845.^[3][4] Sforza later received the ecclesiastical habit on 1 January 1825; his hair was shaved at the top for the clerical tonsure a month after on 13 February which he received from Cardinal Luigi Ruffo-Scilla. Sforza received the minor orders from Scilla on 25 December 1826 - at Christmas - and later the subdiaconate from Giuseppe della Porta Rodiani on 21 April 1832 (in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran) before Rodiani invested Sforza into the diaconate on 22 December 1832.^[3] He received his ordination to the priesthood in Naples on 1 September 1833 from Filippo Giudice Caracciolo.^[2]

He commenced his pastoral duties in evening schools and also worked in prisons for women as well as working alongside apprentices. He served as an "ablegato" to Paris in 1836 to present the red biretta to the new Cardinal Jean-Louis Anne Madalain Lefebvre de Cheverus and later returned from France that 27 June.^[3]

Sforza first worked for sometime as a chamberlain to the pope (since November 1836) and in 1828 was made the "abbot commendatario" for the San Paolo in Albano convent (he took possession of the convent on 12 February 1828) in addition to being named as the vicar of the cardinal camerlengo in the school of Santa Maria in Via Lata Latain on 22 June 1837. In 1829 he served as a conclavist for his cardinal uncle at the conclave that elected Pope Pius VIII.^[3][4] He also made on 30 September 1838 a canon for Saint Peter's Basilica and in 1841 was made the private aide to the pope. Sforza later accompanied the pontiff on the latter's September 1841 trip to Umbria and Rieti in 1842.^[2] He contributed to the conversion to Roman Catholicism of the count Ernest von Stackelberg and the return to the Church of prince Augustin Petrovich Galitzin.

Episcopate

On 12 April 1845 the King Ferdinando II proposed him to the pope to assume the see Bishopric of Aversa which he did a week later on 24 April. Sforza received his episcopal consecration as a bishop one month later on 24 May in a side chapel in Saint Peter's Basilica from Mario Mattei.^[3] The co-consecrators were Ludovico Tevoli and Luigi Maria Cardelli. Sforza assumed possession of his new see via a procurator on 7 May before taking his oath of allegiance to the king on 12 June; his formal entrance into his diocese was celebrated on 21 June.

Sforza was made an Assistant at the Pontifical Throne one month after his episcopal appointment on 17 May and was promoted to the metropolitan archdiocese of Naples later that 24 November concluding a rapid ascension through the ranks. This appointment was confirmed after Ferdinando II proposed him to the pope to take the Naples see on 6 September.^[2] The pope sent him the pallium as the archbishop on 24 November while naming him the archdiocese's head. He was enthroned in his new archdiocese at a formal Mass held on 8 December 1845.^[3] The culmination to his rise through the ranks came in 1846 after the pope elevated him into the cardinalate; he received a special dispensation for having an uncle who was a cardinal since the rules did not allow relations to both act as cardinals. He received the red hat and his titular church of Santa Sabina on 16 April 1846.

The pope sent him the red biretta via the "ablegato" Count Annibale Moroni. The "ablegato" gave the biretta to Ferdinando II to bestow upon Sforza on 5 February 1846. It was in the following months in 1846 that Sforza founded the "Academia de filosofia Tomista".^[3]

He participated in the papal conclave in 1846 that elected Pope Pius IX.^[5][2][4] Pius IX later named Sforza as a member of the cardinalitial commission that he had created charged with preparing a definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The work of that commission resulted in the declaration and definition of the dogma in the pope's apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus. In 1855 he refused the pope's offer to become the newest Archbishop of Bologna.

Sforza distinguished himself in the two cholera epidemics in 1854-55 and 1873 in tending to the ill while tending to victims of the 1861 eruption of Mount Vesuvius.^[2][4] Sforza became titled "Borromeo redivivo" since people associated his pastoral qualities as reminiscent to those of Saint Carlo Borromeo; the Neapolitan episcopate - on 2 February 1862 - gifted Sforza with a stole that had once belonged to Borromeo.

Sforza was forced into exile following the collapse of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from 21 September to 30 November 1860 after he refused to adhere to the demands of the new government. Upon Garibaldi's entrance into Naples on 7 September 1860 the cardinal issued a letter expressing his opposition to Italian unification. He also opposed the dissolution of the Papal States and supported Pius IX during that turbulent period.^[4] He returned to Naples on 30 November 1860 with the aid of Saint Ludovico of Casoria. Sforza was exiled once again on 31 July 1861 and remained in exile until 6 December 1866.^[3] During his exile he lived in Genoa and Marseille (where he resided with the bishop Patrice-François-Marie Cruice) for a time before moving to Hyères and Civitavecchia before settling in Rome. In Rome in 1865 he was consulted about plans for convoking a council and on the eve of it - with 37 other southern Italian bishops - presented a project for the reform of the local church in the south.^[3][2] Before his exile ended he organized a network of periodical publications in opposition to the anticlerical and liberal press. He also arranged for new priests who had just been ordained from Naples to come to see him in Rome so that he could get to know them better.

The cardinal also participated in the First Vatican Council where he spoke out against the decision to proclaim the dogma of papal infallibility. But Sforza tried to compromise and proposed a more mitigated dogma which was not accepted in the council. But he was part of a group that shared this proposal.^[3][4]

In 1876 he inaugurated the Ospizio di Maria and also established a retirement home for priests. He also invited a range of religious orders to settle and work in his archdiocese.^[4]

In June 1875 the diplomat Emilio Visconti Venosta sent a letter to his ambassador to Paris in which he expressed his concern that the French might be pushing Sforza as a potential papal candidate in a conclave that would be held outside of Rome according to him. Venosta described Sforza as "narrow-minded and of limited intelligence" and said that it was probable that Sforza would fall under the influence of the Jesuits. He continued in expressing his hope that Sforza as a potential pope would model his pontificate on the same line of conduct as Pius IX. Venosta stated that "the likelihood of the election of Cardinal Riario repels me" while pointing to Gioacchino Pecci as the candidate who was deserving to be pope.^[6]

Death

The cardinal died due to cardiac difficulties (at the end of a month-long illness) on 29 September 1877 in Naples; his remains were exposed and then buried in the church of San Mario del Pianto before being relocated to the Naples Cathedral. His remains were moved later to the chapel of the SS. Crocifisso in the church of SS. XII Apostoli in April 1927. ^[3][2][4] Pius IX mourned Sforza's death and referred to the late cardinal as his "right arm". Pope Leo XIII later mused that he would not be elected pope with Cardinal Riario Sforza alive; Leo XIII was elected in 1878 just mere months after the cardinal had died.