The beatification of Fr. Giovanni Fornasini in Bologna, Italy, Sept. 26, 2021. / Antonio Minnicelli and Elisa Bragaglia.
Rome Newsroom, Sep 28, 2021 / 08:30 am (CNA).
As Allied forces bombed the Nazi-occupied Italian city of Bologna in the fall of 1943, a 28-year-old Italian priest was seen digging through the rubble with a pickaxe desperately trying to rescue civilian survivors.
“I remember Fr. Giovanni with the pickaxe in his hand working so hard as if he were digging his mother out of that rubble,” Fr. Angelo Serra, a fellow parish priest, recalled after an air raid.
In the testing days under German occupation, Fr. Giovanni Fornasini was described as being “everywhere,” traveling on his bicycle to be of help and bring relief to those who were in danger.
When Nazi troops carried out a mass killing of at least 770 Italian civilians in the village of Marzabotto between Sept. 29 and Oct. 5, 1944, he sought to bury the dead.
After receiving permission from an SS captain, the young priest left on Oct. 13 to bless and bury victims of the Marzabotto massacre, but never returned.
His body was recovered at the site as the war neared its end in April 1945 and an examination revealed that Fr. Giovanni had been brutally beaten before he was killed.
A portrait of Blessed Giovanni Fornasini. chiesadibologna.it.
Fornasini was declared blessed at a live-streamed beatification Mass in Bologna on Sept. 26.
“Fr. Fornasini was the guardian angel of his parishioners,” Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect for the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said in his homily for the beatification.
“He was a prophet of inclusion hated by the harbingers of discrimination. Caring for evacuees, he never stopped praying with the people at Mass with the Sacraments and the Rosary. Above all, he multiplied his efforts to prevent further bloodshed,” the cardinal said at the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, northern Italy.
Cardinal Marcello Semeraro with Blessed Giovanni Fornasini’s bicycle in Bologna, Italy, Sept. 26, 2021. Antonio Minnicelli and Elisa Bragaglia.
On display at the beatification Mass were the priest’s bicycle, glasses, and his aspergillum, the tool used for sprinkling holy water, which was found on him after his death.
An apostolic letter from Pope Francis was read aloud in which the pope declared that Fornasini’s feast would be observed locally each year on Oct. 13.
Fornasini was born near Bologna in 1915. He is reported to have been a poor student and, after leaving school, to have worked for a time as a lift boy at Bologna’s Grand Hotel.
He eventually entered the seminary and was ordained a priest in 1942, at the age of 27. In his homily at his first Mass, Fornasini said: “The Lord has chosen me, rascal among the rascals.”
Blessed Giovanni Fornasini. chiesadibologna.it.
Despite beginning his priestly ministry amid the challenges of the Second World War, Fornasini gained a reputation as a go-getter.
He opened a school for boys at his parish outside Bologna, in the town of Sperticano, and a fellow seminary classmate, Fr. Lino Cattoi, described the young priest as seeming “always to be running.”
“He was always around trying to free people from their difficulties and to solve their problems,” Cattoi recalled. “He had no fear. He was a man of great faith and was never shaken.”
In 1950, the president of Italy posthumously conferred upon Fornasini the country’s Gold Medal of Military Valour. His cause for beatification was opened in 1998.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi speaks at the beatification of Fr. Giovanni Fornasini in Bologna, Italy, Sept. 26, 2021. Antonio Minnicelli and Elisa Bragaglia.
Pope Francis applauded the beatification of Blessed Giovanni Fornasini at the end of his Angelus prayer on Sept. 26 and described the young diocesan priest as a martyr.
“A parish priest zealous in charity, he did not abandon his flock during the tragic period of the Second World War, but rather he defended it to the point of bloodshed. May his heroic witness help us to face life’s trials with fortitude,” the pope said.
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Vatican City, Jun 20, 2023 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
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A photo of Deborah Emmanuel’s photo on her Facebook page. Emmanuel, a Christian student in Nigeria, was killed by an Islamic mob on her college campus on May 12, 2022. / CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 23, 2022 / 14:01 pm (CNA).
Deborah Emmanuel, the Nigerian Christian student who was murdered by a Muslim mob last month, spent her final hours with a close friend who has shared exclusive details of the brutal killing with CNA.
CNA is using the pseudonym “Mary” for the woman’s protection. A Christian herself, she nearly was killed by the same mob.
Significantly, Mary’s account contradicts the claim of authorities that they attempted to rescue Emmanuel from the mob but were “overwhelmed.”
On the contrary, the police “could have stopped the murder if they had really tried,” Mary told CNA.
Emmanuel’s so-called “blasphemy murder” took place on May 12 on the campus of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto, Sokoto State, a major city located in the northwest corner of Nigeria. The city is home to the Muslim Sultan who serves as the top religious authority for Nigeria’s 100 million Muslim believers.
Prior to the attack, Emmanuel, a home economics major who attended Evangelical Church Winning All, was bullied by fanatical Muslim students at the teacher’s college for audio statements she made on WhatsApp, a messaging platform. She credited Jesus Christ for her success on a recent exam, and when threatened and told to apologize she refused, invoking the Holy Spirit, saying “Holy Ghost fire! Nothing will happen to me,” according to WhatsApp messages reviewed by CNA.
In the aftermath of these heated exchanges, a Muslim mob attacked Emmanuel on the college’s campus. After an hours’ long siege, the mob beat and stoned her to death, then set her body on fire with burning tires, according to graphic video footage posted online. The rioters also rampaged in a Catholic Church compound in Sokoto, according to reports. The riots spread to other Christian-owned properties over two days.
A relative of Emmanuel’s, who said he was standing approximately 60 feet from the mob, also told CNA he believes the police could have saved her. He, too, asked that his identity be withheld for his safety.
Unarmed campus security personnel made a futile attempt to rescue Emmanuel, according to a campus security report shared with CNA. But Emmanuel’s relative said there were dozens of armed police officers on the scene who didn’t fire their weapons.
The commissioner of police in the state also said officers did not fire their weapons. However, he maintained that only 15 of his officers were at the scene, according to a report in The Epoch Times.
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto has strongly condemned the attack and called on Emmanuel’s killers to be brought to justice..
“This matter must be treated as a criminal act,” he said. You can read his full statement here.
A plea for help
On the day of Emmanuel’s death, Mary received a frantic phone call from her around 9 a.m, asking for help. By that time, women who lived in her dormitory had begun slapping Emmanuel, Mary told CNA.
Mary arrived at the campus to see her friend surrounded by a mob and being led by a campus staffer to a gatehouse building for her protection. The Muslim students had bloodied her face and head with blows from rods and were joined by male students who believed their duty was to execute a blasphemer on the spot, Mary said.
“Allahu Akbar!” meaning “God is Great” was bellowed for hours, she said.
Mary initially stayed outside the building and tried to intercede for her friend, but she said it wasn’t long before the mob turned on her, too. Within moments Mary was trying to ward off punches and blows from sticks as she backed away from the gatehouse and toward the gate of the college 40 feet away.
Mary said a college lecturer rescued her and brought her to join Emmanuel inside the gatehouse by 10 a.m.
At 10:25 a.m., the relative said, six officers of the Department of State Security (DSS) — the equivalent to the FBI in the U.S. — arrived, firing their rifles in the air but with no effect. Five minutes later, he said, a group of Sokoto police came on the scene and fired tear gas, temporarily scattering the mob.
The above map is based on eyewitness accounts of the murder of Nigerian Christian student Deborah Emmanuel on her college’s campus on May 12, 2022. Graphic by Alexander Hunter
For about 10 minutes police had an opportunity to disperse the mob and force their way to the gatehouse to extract Mary and Emmanuel, Emmanuel’s relative believes. But that did not happen.
By 11 a.m., the mob had returned to the building, holding cloths against their faces to ward off the tear gas. The mob tried hurling stones at Mary through the windows of the locked gatehouse, but Mary barricaded herself behind a table.
The mob then threw gasoline on the women through the front windows and attempted to burn them alive, Mary said.
“Deborah was soaked with gasoline, but when lighted plastic was pitched in through the windows, I quickly stamped the flames out,” Mary said.
No escape
All of this transpired as police and DSS officers watched from a safe distance, according to Emmanuel’s relative.
The traumatized women said little to each other, but Emmanuel was still hoping to do her examination that day, Mary said. At one point, she recalled, Emmanuel asked, “What time is it? I have an examination at noon.” Mary said she looked at her cell phone and told her it was 1 p.m.
After another excruciating hour of siege, the mob pushed down a single Sokoto policeman guarding the door, broke the padlock on the door, and rushed in to find Mary and Emmanuel hiding behind furniture, Mary and the relative related. Two rioters placed a chain around Mary’s neck and pulled it hard, trying to strangle her, she recounted.
“Let this girl go! She is not an offender,” Mary recalled one of the rioters shouting. But as they released her, a young man in the mob grabbed Emmanuel and took her to the front steps of the gatehouse. There she was bludgeoned with steel pipes and wooden rods and stoned, the relative said.
Two DSS officers attempted to rescue Emmanuel but were hit by stones and pushed aside, the relative said. The police officers remained in position and did not come to her aid, he alleged.
Mary collapsed inside the gatehouse gasping from the strangulation. Approximately 40 minutes later, she said, she was roused by one of the mob to leave the building, which was on fire.
As she walked through the smoke, Mary saw the gatehouse burning and Emmanuel’s lifeless body in flames.
The face of Christian persecution
In the aftermath of Emmanuel’s murder, human rights advocates and others have leveled sharp criticism at Nigeria’s government leaders for not doing enough to stem the rising tide of violence directed at Christians and other non-Muslims.
Relatives of Deborah Emmanuel at her burial in Niger State, Nigeria. Courtesy of the Emmanuel family
Anti-Christian hatred was evident in days of rioting in Sokoto following the arrest of two suspects in Emmanuel’s murder. The rioters reportedly were incensed that there were any arrests at all.
“Deborah Emmanuel, like kidnapping victim Leah Sharibu (who was enslaved by Boko Haram insurgents in 2019), has become the face of Christian persecution in Nigeria,” said Kyle Abts, executive director of the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON). “There has not been an official report from the security forces on the lynching of Ms. Emmanuel. Her killing and subsequent riots show clear government complicity and coverup.”
Tina Ramirez, founder of the international nonprofit Hardwired Global, also believes the Nigerian government has been unwilling to take a strong stand against blasphemy killings.
“The recent attacks on students are reminiscent of the attacks at Nigerian colleges two decades ago that were the precursor to the growth of extremist groups across Nigeria’s North and Middle Belt,” Ramirez wrote in a text to CNA.
Pope Francis gives a blessing after he delivers his Angelus address to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Dec. 26, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Dec 26, 2023 / 11:05 am (CNA).
During Tuesday’s Angelus on the occasion of t… […]
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