In these days of the conclave we want to narrate the story of the
Discalced Carmelite who came closest to occupying the See of Peter. We
are speaking of Giovanni Antonio Benedetto Gotti. He was born in the
Italian city of Genoa on March 29, 1834. He made his first profession in
the Teresian Carmel on September 21, 1851, in Loano. From that date, as
was the custom in the reformed Carmel, he was called Jerome Mary of the
Immaculate Conception. On December 22, 1856, he was ordained to the
priesthood. He spent his first years as a professor of philosophy and
from 1858 as a member of the community of Saint Ann in Genoa.
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