Francesco Spoto (8 July 1924 – 27 December 1964) was an Italian

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

who served in the missions in the

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and was killed there. He was also a professed member from the Missionary Servants of the Poor. His beatification was celebrated in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

on 21 April 2007 after

Pope Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...

approved the fact that the priest had been killed "in odium fidei" – in hatred of the faith. Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi presided over the celebration on the behalf of the pope.

Life

Francesco Spoto was born in

Raffadali Raffadali is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Agrigento in the Italy, Italian region of Sicily, located about south of Palermo and about northwest of Agrigento. Geography The commune's territory covers an area of around 1.617 he ...

in mid-1924 and he was baptized on 24 September 1924. His cousin was a

. Spoto commenced his studies for the priesthood in

in 1936 and he later became a professed member of the Missionary Servants of the Poor. He received his

ordination Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

to the priesthood from Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini in the Palermo Cathedral on 22 July 1951. Father Spoto was later elected as the Superior General of his order at its General Chapter in 1959 in a move that surprised him and he later wrote of his shock to a priest cousin. Sporo – in his role as the Superior General – made the petition to see the introduction of the cause for canonization of the order's founder Giacomo Cusmano. He also re-vitalized the order and encouraged vocations. On 4 August 1964 he travelled to Biringi to visit the missions in the

. On 3 December 1964 the Simba rebels captured him along with four other missionaries and on 11 December was beaten and tortured until he managed to escape barefoot though later collapsed due to exhaustion; he forgave his killers and offered his life to

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

. He died due to his injuries on 27 December 1964 after

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; the other four missionaries were saved at some stage. His remains were later moved to Palermo on 14 October 1984.

Beatification

The beatification process opened on 5 June 1992 after he was titled as a

Servant of God Servant of God () is a title used in the Catholic Church to indicate that an individual is on the first step toward possible canonization as a saint. Terminology The expression ''Servant of God'' appears nine times in the Bible, the first five in ...

and the

Congregation for the Causes of Saints In the Catholic Church, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, previously named the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (), is the dicastery of the Roman Curia that oversees the complex process that leads to the canonization of saints, passi ...

issued the official "

nihil obstat (Latin for 'nothing hinders' or 'nothing stands in the way') is a phrase traditionally used by Catholic Church authorities to formally declare that there is no objection to the publication of a book. It also has other uses. Publishing The ...

" to the cause. The diocesan process spanned from 16 December 1992 until 18 March 1996 and received C.C.S. validation on 20 December 1996 in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. The postulation submitted the

Positio A ''positio'' (short for the Latin ''positio super virtutibus'': "position on the virtues") is a document or collection of documents used in the process by which a Catholic person is declared Venerable, the second of four steps on the path to can ...

to Roman officials in 1998. The board of theologians approved the cause on 4 October 2005 while the cardinal and bishop members of the C.C.S. likewise approved it on 4 April 2006.

approved the beatification on 26 June 2006 and delegated Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi to preside over the celebration in the Palermo Cathedral on 21 April 2007. In attendance was the then-Archbishop (now Cardinal) Paolo Romeo and Bishop Marcel Utembi Tapa – of the diocese where Spoto was killed. His beatification was also the first to occur in Palermo. His liturgical feast was affixed to 24 September – the date of his baptism – instead of the date of his death as is the norm. The current postulator for the cause is Bishop Vincenzo Bertolone.

References

External links

Hagiography CircleSaints SQPN
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spoto, Francesco 1924 births 1964 deaths People from Raffadali 20th-century venerated Christians 20th-century Roman Catholic martyrs 20th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests Beatifications by Pope Benedict XVI Italian Roman Catholic missionaries Italian beatified people Italian people murdered abroad People murdered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Roman Catholic missionaries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Italian expatriates in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Italian torture victims People of the Congo Crisis People murdered in 1964 Religious leaders from the Province of Agrigento