The municipal resolution was made on Thursday afternoon, Sept. 29, through an ordinance passed unanimously, which generated an atmosphere of great emotion among all the Salesians, students, and alumni of the "Artémides Zatti" institute present in the hall.
This decision was the result of a request made by Bishop Laxague to Mayor Pesatti himself and to all the city’s elected authorities, which was supported by the citizens of Viedma.
In fact, it was the Salesian bishop who suggested that the people of Viedma, through their representatives, designate Br. Zatti, SDB, as "Patron of the City" through an ordinance, thus expressing the will of the people of Viedma to support Pope Francis' decision to canonize Zatti on Oct. 9.
According to the information portal "Noticias Net," at the end of the Deliberative Council meeting, Mayor Pesatti said, "Today we are expressing, through the representatives of the people of Viedma, gratitude to the most ‘good’ citizen of our city."
"The kindest Viedmese, the relative of the poor, Br. Artemide Zatti shall forever be a spiritual guide and an affective presence for the people of Viedma," the first citizen added further.
For his part, Bishop Laxague said, "the decision to canonize a simple and ordinary man offers the whole world a saint whose main virtue was to be 'a good man.'"
"In this way," he concluded, "Viedma is definitively inserted as a pilgrimage and prayer stop on the map of faith, not only of Patagonia, with the first saint of the region, but of the entire country and the whole world."
