Bl. Lorenzo Maria of Saint Francis Xavier

Lorenzo Salvi was born in Rome in 1782. In 1801, in the anti-religious climate after the French Revolution, he joined the Passionists, a congregation founded to preach about Christ's Passion. He took the name Lorenzo Maria of St Francis Xavier.

When Napoleon's government suppressed religious orders he kept preaching in Rome, and later gave parish missions across central Italy. After a cure he credited to the child Jesus, he made the infant Christ the centre of his preaching. He carved small figures of the baby Jesus to give away. He died at Capranica, near Viterbo, in 1856 and was beatified in 1989.

Lorenzo Maria of Saint Francis Xavier was beatified in 1999.

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