Bl. Gabriele Allegra

Giovanni Allegra was born in 1907 at San Giovanni La Punta, near Catania in Sicily, the eldest of eight children. At ten he entered the Franciscan junior seminary in Acireale, and he took the habit in 1923 as Brother Gabriele Maria.

He trained in Rome for missionary work in China. His great work was translating the Bible into Chinese for Catholic readers. He founded a Biblical Institute in Hong Kong and a sociological study centre in Singapore.

He died in Hong Kong in 1976. His remains rest in the church of San Biagio in Acireale, where he was beatified in 2012.

Gabriele Allegra was beatified in 2012.

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