Bl. Francesco Pianzola

Francesco Pianzola was born in 1881 at Sartirana Lomellina, near Pavia, the son of a blacksmith. He grew up close to the hard life of farmworkers and was ordained a priest in 1907.

To strengthen the faith of country people he founded the Missionary Oblates of the Immaculate, started youth centres and workers' associations, and preached parish missions with trained young lay helpers. In 1919 some of these young women began living in community in a poor quarter of Mortara. They became the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Queen of Peace, who worked among rural women.

He suffered from diabetes and died at the sisters' mother house in Mortara in 1943. He was beatified in Vigevano in 2008.

Francesco Pianzola was beatified in 2008.

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