The three martyr priests of Marzabotto beatified

"They did not seek martyrdom. But they decided not to abandon the flock." Three martyr priests of Marzabotto are blessed: Don Ubaldo Marchioni, diocesan priest, Don Elia Comini, Salesian, and Father Martino Capelli, Dehonian. The beatification mass was celebrated this afternoon in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, presided over by the pontifical delegate, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, and concelebrated by the archbishop, Card. Matteo Zuppi, together with other bishops and priests, including Father Carlos Luis Suárez Codorniú, superior general of the priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and Don Fabio Attard, major rector of the Salesian Society of San Giovanni Bosco. The basilica, packed, gave way to long and heartfelt applause at the moment of the proclamation.

"Don Ubaldo could have saved himself - recalled Cardinal Semeraro in his homily - He preferred to remain close to his people. He died on the steps of the altar". Don Ubaldo Marchioni was shot at the age of 26, at the end of mass in the small church of Casaglia, one of the symbolic places of the memory of Monte Sole and of the entire Marzabotto massacre, the most serious massacre of civilians of the Second World War, at the end of the summer of 1944 on the Bolognese Apennines. The church was then set on fire by the Nazis: it is the same place, now a ruin, where Zuppi started the marathon reading of the names of the children who died in Palestine and Israel. After the killing of Don Marchioni, the other people present in the church were made to leave and headed towards the cemetery in front of which they stopped for about half an hour, guarded by the SS. Then they were let in and hit by bursts of machine gun fire and hand grenades. It was September 29th.

On October 1, 1944, Father Nicola Martino Capelli, a Dehonian, 32 years old, chaplain at San Michele di Salvaro, and Father Elia Comini, who was in those places for a visit to relatives, found their deaths. The two priests had rushed to assist the prisoners in Pioppe di Salvaro. They were crowded with dozens of other men into the water barrel of the Industrie Canapiere Italiane factory. There they were killed. Their bodies left floating, preventing recovery.

Proclaimed Blessed in 2021 is Don Giovanni Fornasini, 29 years old, killed on 13 October 1944, when he went to look for Don Marchioni in San Martino di Caprara.

Among the martyr priests of Marzabotto there was also Don Ferdinando Casagrande, 30 years old, who remained in charge of the parish at the foot of Monte Sole until the end. He was killed on 9 October as he left the refuge to try to feed himself and his companions.