(ANS – Rome) – On Sunday 27 September 2026 at 5.00 pm in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, Fr Ubaldo Marchioni, a diocesan priest, Fr Elia Comini, a Salesian, and Fr Martino Capelli, a Dehonian, will be beatified. These priests were killed by Nazi troops in 1944 during the Monte Sole massacres. The beatification ceremony will take place during a Solemn Mass presided over by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and concelebrated by Cardinal Archbishop Matteo Zuppi, together with Father Fabio Attard, Rector Major of the Salesian Congregation, and Father Carlos Luis Suárez Codorniú, Superior General of the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
On 18 December 2024, Pope Francis, and on 21 November 2025, Pope Leo XIV, authorised the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decrees recognising the martyrdom ‘out of hatred for the faith’ of Fathers Elia Comini, Ubaldo Marchioni and Martino Capelli. These three new Blesseds join Father Giovanni Fornasini, the other priest killed in the Monte Sole massacres and beatified in Bologna on 26 September 2021.
Father Ubaldo Marchioni, born on 19 May 1918 in Vimignano (Grizzana) in the Bolognese Apennines, was an exemplary priest who remained faithful to his community even during the most tragic moments of the war. He was ordained in 1942 and served as parish priest at San Martino di Caprara and Casaglia from May 1944. During the Nazi massacre of 29 September that year, he remained by his parishioners’ side until his violent death on the steps of the altar at Casaglia. It was amongst the rubble of that altar that a ciborium riddled with bullet holes was found, a symbol of faith and martyrdom.
Father Martino Capelli was born in Val Seriana (Bergamo) on 20 September 1912 and completed his religious and academic formation with the Dehonian Fathers, including in Bologna. On 23 September 1933, he took his perpetual vows and was ordained a priest in 1938. Father Elia Comini, a professed priest of the Society of St Francis de Sales, was born in Calvenzano di Vergato (Bologna) on 7 May 1910. In the summer of 1944, both men were living in the parish of Salvaro, assisting the parish priest in helping the war-torn population. On 29 September, they were arrested by the Nazis whilst going to the aid of the victims of the Creda massacre and imprisoned together with a large group of those rounded up. On 1 October, they were selected, along with 45 other men, to be shot on the banks of the Salvaro canal.
For further information, please write to: postulatore@sdb.org
BELOW IS THE LINK TO THE PROGRAMME of the commemorative events
