Teresio Olivelli beatified

Source: Vatican News Service

An Italian layman, Teresio Olivelli who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, for his faith, was beatified on 3 February in Vigevano, Italy. A soldier, who resisted fascism and Nazism, and founded a clandestine newspaper in Milan, Teresio Olivelli was deported to Germany in 1944. He died in Hersbruck, Germany, at the age of 29, on January 17, 1945, of fatal blows received as he tried to protect a young Ukrainian prisoner who was brutally beaten.

His beatification ceremony took place at the Vigevano Sports Palace, presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Cardinal Amato said: "To speak of Teresio Olivelli, is to speak of a young enthusiast of his faith and a lover of his country… During the war on the Russian front or in the concentration camps, the purity of his simple faith, convinced, touched. He encouraged, supported, consoled, comforted. Soldiers found a warm welcome and religious comfort in Teresio. He loved God, he loved the Church, he loved the Pope, he loved others with this evangelical charity taught by Jesus. Charity was the fabric of his life."

Pope Francis paid tribute to Teresio during his Angelus address on Sunday, saying he "has borne witness to Christ through the love of the weak, and he is united with the long rank of the martyrs of the last century… May his heroic sacrifice be the seed of hope and fraternity, especially for young people."