Sisto Riario Sforza (5 December 1810 – 29 September 1877) was an Italian Roman Catholic cardinal who served as the Archbishop of Naples from 1845 until his death. Sforza's rapid rise through the Church ranks began with various appointments before he served as the Bishop of Aversa for seven months. He was promoted to the Naples archdiocese and cardinalate. After two months, Sisto became a close supporter of Pope Pius IX and a vocal participant in the First Vatican Council.
He opposed Italian unification and was temporarily exiled from Naples after unification when he refused to adhere to the requests that the new government made of him. He used this time in exile to travel and to set up a private network to create periodical publications to oppose the anticlerical press coming from his archdiocese. He was later allowed to return and carried out his duties, such as aiding victims of two cholera epidemics and the 1861 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Towards the end of his life there were rumours that the French, who were preparing for a papal conclave to be held outside of Rome (due to the Italian unification), were aiming to propose Sforza as a papal contender. Sforza died just five months before Pope Leo XIII was elected, despite Pope Leo XIII's objection to becoming pope while Sforza was still alive, as Sforza would have opposed Pecci's candidature.
His beatification process was launched in the 1920s and culminated on 28 June 2012, after Pope Benedict XVI recognized his heroic virtue and titled him as Venerable.
Life
House
Sisto Riario Sforza was born in Naples on 5 December 1810 into the noble Riario-Sforza House as the younger of two brothers; his older brother was Nicola Giovanni. His parents were Duke Giovanni Antonio Riario Sforza and Maria Gaetana Cattaneo della Volta. 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 and many of his ancestors such as Pietro Riario (a Franciscan), Raffaele Riario, and Alessandro Riario had been cardinals.
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.
Education and priesthood
He decided to enter the ecclesial life in late 1824 and moved to Rome, where he would be educated under the presence 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. 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 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. He received his ordination to the priesthood in Naples on 1 September 1833 from Filippo Giudice Caracciolo.
He commenced his pastoral duties in evening schools, worked in prisons for women, and also worked alongside apprentices. He served as a papal legate in Paris in 1836 to present the red biretta to new Cardinal Jean-Louis Anne Madalain Lefebvre de Cheverus, returning from France that 27 June.
Sforza first worked for some time 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, he was also 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. On 30 September 1838 he was made 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. 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.