Giuseppe Girotti to be beatified


On Saturday, April 26, 2014, Father Giuseppe Girotti, a Dominican priest, will be beatified.

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The Dominican was among the 1500 priests and religious who perished in the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau. He was imprisoned there because of his opposition to the Fascist regime and to the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Pope Francis recalled on Wednesday, April 23, 2014, that the Dominican had been “killed as an act of hatred of the faith in the Nazi camp of Dachau. His heroic Christian testimony and his martyrdom might evoke in many the desire to adhere more and more to Jesus and the Gospel”.

He was born in Alba, Italy in 1905 in a poor family. He was ordained a Dominican priest in 1930. Between 1932 and 1934, he studied in Jerusalem at the Dominican Ecole biblique. He returned to Italy to teach the Bible and published a commentary on the Wisdom Books. In 1939, he was forbidden to continue teaching because his anti-Fascist views were revealed. In 1943, with the German occupation, the Jews were rounded up. Father Girotti tried to come to their aid but was himself arrested in 1944, accused of helping Jews, and was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp where he perished as a result of maltreatment and disease. He died on April 1, 1945 with the words “Marantha, Come Lord Jesus!” on his lips.

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