Alberic Crescitelli
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| Alberic Crescitelli | |
|---|---|
| Martyr | |
| Born | 30 June 1863 , Altavilla, Italy |
| Died | 21 July 1900 (aged 37), Shanxi, China |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 18 February 1951, Vatican City by Pope Pius XII |
| Canonized | 1 October 2000, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II |
| Feast | 22 July and 28 September as one of the Martyrs of China |
 Saints Portal |
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Alberic (Alberico) Crescitelli (1863–1900) was an Italian Catholic priest and missionary to China. Born in Italy on 30 June 1863, Father Alberico Crescitelli entered the Pontifical Foreign Missions Institute in 1880 and was ordained a priest on 4 June 1887. The following year he went to China and began work in southern Shaanxi.
Crescitelli was believed to be killed in the Boxer Rebellion. However, according to another theory, it was not the Boxers who killed Father Crescitelli—the Boxers never spread as far as Shaanxi province.
Crescitelli's confreres, who had known him well and for many years, started his beatification cause in 1908, only eight years after his death. The testimony provided by the confreres was unanimous about the holiness of Crescitelli's life.
At the Vatican, in St. Peter's Basilica on 18 February 1951, Pope Pius XII declared Alberico Crescitelli "blessed." The Pope's speech was memorable especially for the passage in which he described Father Alberico's martyrdom:
| “ | Humanly speaking, his death was horrible; perhaps one of the most atrocious recorded in history. Nothing was missing, neither the cruelty of the torments, nor the time they lasted, the most barbaric humiliations, nor the suffering of the heart, nor the hypocritical betrayal of false friends, nor the hostile and threatening screams of his murderers, nor the darkness of being abandoned. | ” |
Pope John Paul II included him in the list of 120 martyrs of China canonized in St. Peter's Square on October 1, 2000.
His name in Chinese was 郭锡德 (Guo Xi-de).
[edit] External links
- Alberico Crescitelli - martire in Cina (Italian) - biography published 2005, Bologna (overview)
