Pope Francis canonized a 19th-century bishop known as "the father of migrants" on Sunday in light of immigration besetting politics in Italy and abroad.

Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, Religion News reported, was a bishop in Italy's northern city of Piacenza from 1876 to 1905. Scalabrini served in his post during a time of industrial and scientific leaps that spurred the migrations of millions of people.

"The Holy Father introduces us to a bishop who was capable of not just fully and capably managing his diocese, but was able to look beyond," the Rev. Graziano Battistella said. "With this canonization, I think the Holy Father wants to offer the church a model to imitate: a model for bishops, a model for the church."

During an outdoor mass outside St. Peter's Square, the National Catholic Register reported, the pope declared Scalabrini a saint.

Speaking in Latin, the pope proclaimed: "For the honor of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of Christian life, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and the holy apostles Peter and Paul and our own, after due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define blessed Giovanni Battista Scalabrini and Artemide Zatti to be saints, and we enroll them among the saints, decreeing that they are to be venerated as such by the whole church."

After the Gospel was chanted, the pope proclaimed that the two new saints can intercede to "help us to walk together without walls of division and to cultivate that nobility of soul so pleasing to God, which is gratitude."

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