Fr. Elijah Comini to Be Beatified

Fr. Elijah Comini, priest and martyr, 

will be beatified on September 27

(ANS – Vatican City – January 19, 2026) – On January 2, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, substitute of the Vatican Secretariat of State, informed Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna, that Pope Leo XIV had accepted the proposal to celebrate the Rite of Beatification of the Venerable Servants of God Ubald Marchinoni, diocesan priest, Elijah Comini, Salesian priest, and Martin Capelli, Dehonian priest, on September 27 in Bologna. The representative of the Supreme Pontiff will be Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Fr. Elijah Comini was born in the locality of Madonna del Bosco in Calvenzano di Vergato (Bologna) on May 7, 1910. Msgr. Fidenzio Mellini, a former pupil of Don Bosco in Turin, directed him to the Salesians of Finale Emilia. Elijah became a novice on October 1, 1925, made his first profession on October 3, 1926, and his perpetual profession on May 8, 1931. Ordained in Brescia on March 16, 1935, the Servant of God lived in the Salesian houses in Chiari (in the province of Brescia), until 1941 and Treviglio (in the province of Bergamo), from 1941 to 1944.

In the summer of 1944, Fr. Elijah returned for a few periods to the Bologna Apennines to assist his mother, who was now elderly and alone, and to help Msgr. Mellini in his pastoral work. He arrived in Salvaro on June 24. He remained there for just over three months, until his death.

Fr. Elijah helped the population with their many practical needs dictated by wartime, animated the liturgy, and promoted the reception of the sacraments; he supported the consecrated women and lived an intense apostolate in the exercise of all works of corporal and spiritual mercy. He also mediated between the opposing sides: the population, the partisans, and the Germans soldiers who were stationed in the rectory for a month (August 1 - September 1, 1944).

Fr. Elijah established a priestly fraternity with the young Dehonian Fr. Martin Capelli, which united them in ministry and martyrdom. On the morning of September 29, 1944, Fr. Elijah rushed with Fr. Martin to Creda, a village where the SS of a battalion of the 16th Armored Division had just perpetrated a massacre: their stoles, holy oils, and ciborium with some Eucharistic hosts clearly identified them as priests in the exercise of their ministry of comforting the dying. Captured, stripped of their priestly garb, and used as pack animals to transport ammunition, Fr. Elijah and Fr. Martin experienced intense suffering that day. Transferred in the evening to the “house of the carters” in Pioppe di Salvaro, they lived through 2 intense days, convinced from the outset that they were destined to die, yet remaining close to the prisoners. On the evening of October 1, they were killed in the group of “unfit” prisoners at the spinning mill in Pioppe di Salvaro, at the end of a surreal liturgy in which the SS had paraded the prisoners along a walkway before mowing them down with machine guns: Fr. Elijah intoned the Litany and finally cried out “Pietà!” (Mercy!). The bodies couldn’t be recovered because the spillway was opened and the impetuous current of the Reno River carried away the remains.

Fr. Martin Capelli, ordained in 1938, was a seminary professor. He moved with the students to Burzanella, in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. In the summer of 1944, he came to Salvaro to help the elderly parish priest of San Michele in the pastoral service of the village, despite that the area was at the center of armed clashes involving German and Allied soldiers and partisan groups. After the massacre perpetrated by the SS in the nearby locality known as “Creda,” like Fr. Elijah, Fr. Capelli rushed to bring comfort to the dying and was seized, abused, and executed.

Monument to Frs. Comini and Capelli at Salvaro

Fr. Ubald Marchioni was an exemplary priest, faithful to his community even in the most tragic moments of World War II. After years of formation and deep friendships in the seminary, he became a priest in 1942 and was pastor in San Martino di Caprara and Casaglia from May 1944. During the Nazi massacre of September 29 of that year, he remained with his parishioners until his violent death on the steps of the altar in Casaglia. It was among the rubble of that altar that a bullet-riddled ciborium was found, a symbol of faith and martyrdom.

Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, Salesian postulator general, states, “Fr. Elijah Comini, Fr. Martin Capelli, Fr. Ubald Marchioni, together with Blessed John Fornasini are young priests who embodied the charity of the Good Shepherd, giving their lives for their flock and with their flock, faithful ministers of the mysteries of redemption, artisans of peace, justice, and reconciliation.”