Bl. Ceferino Giménez Malla

Ceferino Giménez Malla, known as "El Pelé", was a Spanish Roma (Gypsy) man born in 1861. He lived as a traveller for about forty years, then settled in Barbastro in Aragon and traded horses and mules. People knew him for his honesty in business. He married but had no children.

He could not read, but he taught children, both Roma and non-Roma, to pray and told them Bible stories. He also settled disputes between families. In 1926 he joined the Franciscan Third Order, a branch for lay people.

At the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 he defended a priest being dragged off to prison and was arrested himself. He was shot with others in Barbastro, holding a rosary and calling out "Long live Christ the King!" His body was never found. John Paul II beatified him in 1997, the first Roma to be beatified.

Ceferino Giménez Malla was beatified in 1997 by John Paul II.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.