Blessed Ceferino Giménez Malla

Ceferino Giménez Malla (also known as El Pelé, "the Strong One", or "the Brave One"; 26 August 1861 – 9 August 1936) was a Spanish Romani Catholic catechist and activist. A victim of the Republican militias during the Spanish Civil War, Giménez Malla was beatified on 4 May 1997, now his feast day. He is the patron of Romani people. Giménez Malla was born to Juan Jiménez and Josefa Malla, a Catholic Romani family, in either Benavent de Segriá, Lleida or in Alcolea de Cinca, Spain. Sources differ as to whether the year was 1861 or 1865. He was baptized in Fraga, Huesca Province. His father was a cattle-trader. The family usually waited out the winter on farms in places farmers set aside for them, or else they rented a cottage for a few months. Ceferino often went hungry. Accompanying his father, he became conversant in Catalan as well as Romany. Around 1880 his father abandoned the family and they went to Barbastro, where his uncle taught Ceferino to weave wicker baskets. About the age of twenty, he wed Teresa Jiménez Castro according to a traditional Roma ceremony. They were happily married for forty years. They had no children, but looked after his younger brothers and sisters. Around 1909 they adopted Teresa's orphaned niece, Pepita. In 1912, Giménez Malla and his wife Teresa solemnized their marriage in a Catholic ceremony, and bought a house in the Huescan town of Barbastro. Teresa died in 1922. Known for his honesty, Ceferino became something of a leader in the Roma community of Barbastro and the surrounding area. People would seek him out for advice, and to mediate family quarrels. He also resolved disputes between Romani and Spanish people. One day a local landowner, suffering from tuberculosis, passed out on the street. Heedless of the danger of contagion, Malla hoisted the man on his shoulders and carried him home.