The Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, His Eminence Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, representing the Holy Father, will preside over the rite of beatification of Venerable Luigi Palić (Albanian: Paliq), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, martyr, and Venerable Gjon Gazulli, diocesan priest, martyr, in the Cathedral of Shkodra, Albania, on Saturday, the 16th November, 2024.
The Causes of the two Servants of God began in 2002, when the rediscovered freedom of worship in Albania allowed the Church to instruct the processes of recognition of the martyrdom of some victims of religious persecution during the twentieth century.
The first group to reach the Beatification, on November 5, 2016, was that of Blessed Vincent Prennushi OFM, Archbishop of Durres, and his XXXVII Companions. The new beatification concerns a friar minor and a diocesan priest who heroically sealed their faith in Christ and in the Church with the sacrifice of their lives, respectively in the year 1913 and in the year 1927.
Br. Luigi Palić OFM was born in Janjevo, in the then Archdiocese of Skopje, Kosovo region, on February 20, 1877. From childhood he frequented the Friars Minor of the sanctuary of St. Anthony of Padua in Gjakova. Attracted by the Franciscan ideal, he followed the example of his older brother Angelo and asked to enter the Order. He spent the years of religious formation, from novitiate (1896) to priestly ordination (1901), among the Friars Minor of Bologna, Italy. Returning to Albania, he carried out his pastoral activity mainly in the parish of Pejë, in the then Archdiocese of Skopje, and also in Gjakova and in the village of Gllogjan.
His martyrdom dates back to the time of the First Balkan War (1912-1913) when there was pressure on the Catholic and Muslim population to convert to Orthodoxy with the intention of achieving, with religious homogeneity, the political unification of the territory. Father Luigi Palić was a virtuous and esteemed priest, he shared the suffering of the people subjected to mistreatment and violence and above all he exhorted everyone to remain faithful to their beliefs. For this position he was arrested on the 4th March, 1913. He spent two days in prison suffering torture for his refusal to abjure the Catholic faith. On the 7th March7, 1913, on the way that led him with other prisoners to Pejë to be tried, he was separated from the other prisoners and stripped of his religious habit. As he was about to be shot, he confirmed his full willingness to die for Christ and for the Church by crying out: "O Jesus, be it for thy love!"
Immediately an authentic and lasting reputation of martyrdom manifested itself around him. His body, after a temporary burial at the site of the killing, was solemnly buried in Zym on the 16th July, 1913 in the presence of civil and ecclesiastical authorities. On the site of martyrdom an iron cross was erected, two metres high and artistically wrought in iron.
Fr. Gjon Gazulli was born in Dajç di Zadrima, in the diocese of Sappa, Albania, on the 26th March 1893. In 1905 he entered the Pontifical Seminary of Shkodra and later the Urbanian College in Rome from where, however, he had to withdraw in June 1913 due to tuberculosis. After recovering his health, from 1916 to 1919 he was in the Society of Jesus in Vienna. Yet again the illness forced him to return to Albania. Here on the 4th August, 1919 he was ordained a priest.
He carried out his ministry as parish priest in Gjader, Qelëz, and then, from 1925 in Koman. That was the time of the regime of Achmet Zogu, President of the Republic of Albania since January 1925, hostile to the Catholic clergy, particularly towards priests who inspired their pastoral action by the social doctrine of the Church. When a revolt against Zogu broke out in Dukagjin in November 1926, Don Gazulli was unjustly accused of having fomented it and was arrested on the 28th December, 1926. In reality, the accusation was a pretext to mask the odium fidei against him who opposed the government's project to suppress Catholic schools. He was sentenced to death by a sentence pronounced by the political court on the 10th February, 1927. The sentence by hanging was carried out publicly in Shkodra on 5th March, 1927. Before dying, the Servant of God confirmed his full adherence to Christ by saying: "I die an innocent. Long live Christ, our King! Long live the Catholic Church! Long live the Pope! Long live Albania!".
His death was perceived by the faithful as a true martyrdom and his fame remained alive even in the years of communist persecution, when the Church in Albania was reduced to silence. The tomb of the Servant of God, in the cemetery of Shkodra, was visited clandestinely by the faithful who found comfort for the faith and attested to receiving many graces through his intercession.
