Dipolog diocese opens cause for beatification of Italian Jesuit

Dipolog Bishop Severo Caermare has officially opened the diocesan process for the beatification and canonization of an Italian Jesuit missionary who worked in Mindanao, according to a post on the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines news website.

At the age of 35, Fr. Francesco Palliola, SJ was martyred at Ponot, now Jose S. Dalman town, on Jan. 29, 1648 by Tampilo, a converted native leader who had left the faith, and whom Palliola was trying to bring back to the Church.

Bishop Caermare announced the opening on Jan. 9 with Fr. Patrick Dalangin, parish priest of the Municipality of Ponot (Jose Dalman), Zamboanga del Norte appointed as postulator.

Caermare said: “Padre Palliola may have been Neapolitan, an Italian by birth; but his love for God, his great passion for mission and caring for the people of the Zamboanga Peninsula, particularly the Subanon lumad, made him truly Mindanaoan.”

Born into a noble family, in the town of Nola in Naples, Italy on May 10, 1612, Palliola was part of a 40-man Jesuit expedition to the Philippines.

After traveling for two years, he finally landed in Iligan on Jan. 2, 1644, beginning a mission in Mindanao that would take him to Dipolog, Dapitan, and the rest of the Zamboanga Peninsula, spreading the Catholic faith to the locals, including the lumads.

The investigative process “to ascertain the authenticity of his life, the renown of his sanctity, and the miracles attributed to him” will be undertaken not just the Diocese of Dipolog, but also the Jesuits and the Augustinian Recollects, who had worked in the area. — BAP, GMA News