Francesco Bonifacio

Francesco Giovanni Bonifacio ( born October 4, 1912 in Piran, Slovenia, † September 11, 1946 in Grožnjan ) was a Catholic priest and martyr who was beatified by the Catholic Church.

Life

Francesco Giovanni Bonifacio was born as the son of a poor family in the former austrian Piran d'Istria. He joined in 1931 the seminary in Gorizia one. In 1936, he was consecrated in the Cathedral of Trieste as a priest. This was followed by service as a chaplain and vicar. As such, he was able to organize a handsome youth apostolate and establish various branches of Catholic Action. He participated in the Italian territory, which was occupied after the Second World War Yugoslavia and terrorized by communist partisans. Francesco Giovanni Bonifacio also was under threat, but he refused to be intimidated. On September 11, 1946, he was seized by two assassins of the Yugoslav secret OZNA, tortured and finally stabbed. He is one of the victims of the so-called Foibe massacre, as his body was thrown into a karst cave.

Francesco Giovanni Bonifacio was beatified in Trieste on October 4, 2008. His feast day in the liturgy is September 11.