SAINT FEAST DAY 21 OCTOBER: BL. GIUSEPPE PUGLISI, PRIEST AND MARTYR

BLESSED GIUSEPPE PUGLISI, PRIEST AND MARTYR

Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi was born in 1937 in Brancaccio, a working class neighbourhood in Palermo, Sicily, into a family of modest means. His father was a shoemaker and his mother a dressmaker. Blessed Giuseppe entered the local seminary at the age of 16 and was ordained a priest in 1960.

HE SPOKE OUT

Blessed Giuseppe was aware of the influence of the Mafia and tried to persuade the local Church and the authorities to speak out against it. In 1990 Blessed Giuseppe was sent to work in his home neighbourhood of Brancaccio as the priest of San Gaetano’s parish. He spoke out against the Mafia who controlled the area. Blessed Giuseppe opened a shelter for underprivileged children and discouraged young people from dropping out of school, robbing, drug dealing and selling contraband cigarettes. The local people were conditioned by fear, passivity and imposed silence with regards to the Mafia.

HE REFUSED THE MAFIA'S MONEY

Blessed Giuseppe tried to break through this and pleaded with his people to speak to the authorities about the Mafia’s illicit activities. He refused the Mafia’s money and would not allow members of the Mafia to march in religious processions. Blessed Giuseppe ignored several warnings and threats made to him and declined to employ a company to repair his church roof which had been strongly recommended for the work by the Mafia. The Mafia bosses ordered that Blessed Giuseppe should be killed and on September 15, 1993, hitmen arrived in front of his church and murdered Blessed Giuseppe with a single bullet fired at point-blank range. One of the hitmen, who later confessed, revealed the priest’s last words as, “I’ve been expecting you.” On April 14, 1998, several Mafia members received life sentences for ordering the killing or for killing Blessed Giuseppe.

IT IS HE WHO WON, WITH THE RISEN CHRIST

During a visit to Sicily in 1994, Pope John Paul II praised Giuseppe as a ‘courageous exponent of the Gospel’. On June 28, 2012, Pope Benedict designated Giuseppe as a martyr who was killed ‘in hatred of the Faith’, thus meaning that he could be beatified as a Blessed without a miracle being attributed to his intercession with God. Two weeks ago Pope Francis said that, ‘Blessed Giuseppe was an exemplary priest, especially dedicated to the pastoral care of youth. In teaching boys in accordance with the Gospel he saved them from the criminal underworld and thus the latter sought to get the better of him by killing him. However, in fact it is he who won, with the risen Christ.'

Source: Spiritual Thought from Fr Chris

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Blessed Giuseppe may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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