BY Bridget Orr | October 7 | 
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Pope urges young to emulate beatified Italian martyr
Pope Francis has said teenage martyr Blessed Rolando Rivi, who was beatified on Saturday, is a ‘beautiful example’ to young people.
Blessed Rolando Rivi (above) was a seminarian in Modena who was killed by Italian Communists following the Second World War when he was only 14 years old.
He was beatified on Saturday October 5 at a beatification mass in a sports stadium in the city attended by around 5500 people.
During the Angelus yesterday, this beatification served as an example for Catholics to ‘increase their faith’.
“Let us thank God for this young martyr, a heroic witness of the Gospel,” the Pope said.
“How many young people 14 years today have before their eyes this example, a courageous youth who knew where he must go, who knew in his heart the love of Jesus, and gave his life for Him?”
Blessed Rolando Rivi’s beatification was announced earlier this March by Pope Francis alongside Franciscan Fr Giuseppe Girotti, who died in a Nazi concentration camp, and Fr Vladimir Ghika and Salesian Brother Stephen Sandor, who were killed by Communist regimes in Romania and Hungary respectively.
Blessed Rivi along with the above martyrs now requires a miracle attributed to him before being canonized.
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