Venerable Frei Damião

Damião de Bozzano O.F.M. Cap., born as Pio Giannotti (5 November 1898 – 31 May 1997), was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin who served in the Brazilian missions for over six decades. Giannotti entered the order when he was twelve to do his ecclesial studies and religious formation of which he spent some of that time in Rome. He worked as a teacher from 1928 until 1931 when he was sent to the missions in Brazil. He would remain there for the rest of his life and would go travelling often to northern Brazilian cities where he would celebrate Mass and evangelize while hearing confessions on a frequent basis. Towards the end of his life he was hospitalized on nineteen separate occasions due to a series of health issues he began facing. He suffered from a spinal deformation that left him stooped and suffered from speech and breathing difficulties. His health declined into his nineties and he died from a stroke while recovering in hospital for breathing difficulties. The beatification process for the late friar had been called for after he died since the people in Recife and the northern cities revered Giannotti as a saint. The Olinda e Recife archdiocese launched the beatification cause in mid-2003 after its formal introduction in 2002 and he became titled as a Servant of God. The cause culminated on 6 April 2019 after Pope Francis acknowledged his heroic virtue and named him as Venerable. Pio Giannotti was born in Bozzano on 5 November 1898 as the second of five children born to the pious peasants Felice and Maria. His older brother Guglielmo became a priest and spiritual director while his sister Pia joined the Sisters of Saint Zita as a professed religious. He was baptized on 6 November in the Chiesa di Santi Caterina e Prospero and he later received his confirmation on 15 June 1908 from Cardinal Benedetto Lorenzelli in the Lucca Cathedral.