Ceferino Namuncurá

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Ceferino "Morales" Namuncurá (August 26, 1886 - May 11, 1905) was a religious student and the object of religious cult in northern Patagonia.

Ceferino was born in Chimpay, in Valle Medio, Río Negro Province, Argentina, the sixth child of Rosario Burgos and a Mapuche cacique, Manuel Namuncurá. He was baptised by a missionary priest, Domingo Milanesio, at eight years old.

Namuncurá's early years were spent by the Río Negro river, and it was here that it was said he miraculously survived a fall into the river. He attended the San Fernando school, then the Pio IX technical school in Almagro, Buenos Aires city. That school, run by Salesians, gave him a Catholic education that deepened his faith.

Namuncurá started studies for priesthood, yet became increasingly sick with a cough, later diagnosed as tuberculosis. In 1904, he departed for Italy together with Monseñor Antonio Cagliero, who was to become an Archbishop. Pope Pius X received them on September, after which Namuncurá moved to Turin to continue his religious education. But, he became ill during the Italian winter and was taken to Rome, were he died a few weeks later.

In 1924, his remains where returned to Argentina, where they now rest in Fortín Mercedes, in the south of Buenos Aires Province.

In Chimpay a very small chapel has been erected to Namuncurá, where believers from Río Negro Province and beyond beg him for miracles. In 1945, a request for his beatification was made to the Vatican. Since 1972, Ceferino has been officially considered venerable, the first Argentine to be so, and the process of his beatification is ongoing.