On the 20th June, 2024, the Holy Father Francis received in audience Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, and authorized the promulgation of the following decree concerning the General Postulation of the Friars Minor, concerning two martyrs, a friar minor, and a contemplative religious.
The Decree contains, amongst others, the approval of the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Isaiah Columbro (born Nicola Antonio Maria), a professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, born in Foglianise, Diocese of Benevento, on the 11th February 1908 and died in Vitulano, in the same Diocese, on the 13th July 2004.
Entering the Province of Our Lady of Graces of the Friars Minor of Irpinia and Sannio in 1924, Father Isaia Columbro spent his life between the friary of the Santissima Annunziata in Vitulano and that of Our Lady of Graces in Benevento. In the humble daily life of the roles assigned to him, from assistant master to master of novices and clerics, from guardian to assistant parish priest and parish priest, from confessor to exorcist, he acted with generosity, with industriousness, with fidelity. To every task entrusted to him by his superiors he was able to add a surplus of prayer, of charity towards God and neighbour, which did not go unnoticed by his confreres and many of the faithful.
Those who had the opportunity to meet him clearly perceived the breath of God's spirit in his gestures, in his acts, in his welcoming humility, in his generous availability, in his constant trust in providence, in his boundless charity, in his disarming poverty.
As he advanced in years, he was forced for health reasons to live a more withdrawn life, which allowed him to intensify his prayer and devote himself full-time to confession and to listening to the penitents, who were increasingly numerous.
At the ripe old age of 96, he died peacefully in his cell in the friary of Vitulano on the 13th July, 2004, whilst he was praying.
The Cause for his Beatification was initiated in 2014.
