NEW BLESSEDS

 As of February 3, 2018 the Church has a new blessed, of whom  Pope Francis said:   He has borne witness to Christ through the love of the weak, and he is united with the long rank of the martyrs of the last century...
May his heroic sacrifice be the seed  of hope and fraternity, especially for young people.”

BL. TERESIO OLIVELLI an Italian layman who was killed in hatred of the faith in 1945, at the Nazi camp in Hersbruck, Germany. 

Teresio Olivelli was born in 1916 in Como to Domenico Olivelli and Clelia Invernizzi. His maternal uncle was the parish priest Rocco Invernizzi, who served as the blessed's spiritual and moral guide. He moved with his parents in 1926 to Pavia,  where he excelled in his studies.

In 1934 he graduated in law with honors in 1938 from the Ghislieri College. Each week he went to confession and  received the Eucharist in the parish of San Lorenzo. It was around this time that he was a member of Catholic Action.

In 1939 he became the assistant of administrative law at the University of Turin and won a competition in Trieste for oratorical skills, with a thesis on human dignities for all irrespective of race. He also penned articles on the social and legal issues of the times in the college paper "Book and Musket" and in the journal "Fascist Civilization". While in Turin he aided the poor and orphaned. He also learned to speak fluent German.

In 1936 he volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War and then moved for educational reasons to Berlin from 1939 to 1941. In 1941 he volunteered to go to Russia to fight in World War II where he contracted frostbite due to the severe cold weather. Bl. Teresio did not want to swear allegiance to the new Italian Social Republic in 1943 and was thus deported to Innsbruck in Austria on 9 September 1943 until he managed to flee and settle in Milan October 21.

He started to become critical of the Italian regime and believed he could improve it through a more Christian message, though later broke from it after seeing the situation with deporting Jewish people as per racial laws and the French invasion. He became part of the Italian resistance movement in Milan as part of the triangular resistance including Brescia and Cremona branches.He worked to create the newspaper "Il ribelle". His paper was the underground newspaper for the Green Flames Brigades partisan group.

Bl. Teresio was apprehended in Milan on April 27,1944 and was at once taken to the prison of San Vitore where he was tortured and beaten before being moved to Fossoli on June 8. On July 11 his name was added to a list of 70 inmates to be shot, but  he fled and hid in a field until he was recaptured. He was then transferred to Bolzano (August 1944) before being sent to Flossenburg in September, and then to Hersbruck. He shared food rations with inmates and treated their injuries and even spent time with Blessed Odoardo Focherini to comfort him before the latter died. 

 BL ODOARDO FOCHERINI was an Italian Roman Catholic journalist. He issued false documents to Jewish people during World War II in order to escape the Nazi regime but was arrested and sent to a concentration camp where he later died. Yad Vashem later recognized him as a Righteous Among the Nations in 1969 for  his efforts.He was beatified in June 2013.

Bl. Odoardo

Bl. Teresio died from injuries he sustained in 1945 not long after defending a Ukrainian inmate from being attacked. He was kicked in the stomach and intestines  being struck 25 times. His remains were cremated at the camp's crematorium.

"The Gospel and the constant reference to the figure of Jesus were his strengths.”  (Pope Francis)