Venerable Giacomo Filon

Beniamino Filon (2 August 1900 - 21 July 1948) - in religious Giacomo da Balduina - was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Filon studied in Rovigo before being summoned to Milan for mandated service in the armed forces towards the close of World War I but following it was able to resume his studies in Bassano del Grappa. He was ordained to the priesthood and spent a brief respite in Slovenia due to a disease he was suffering from. He remained for most of his time as a friar listening to confessions in Udine but died in 1948 in Lourdes while on a pilgrimage. Filon's cause for beatification launched in the 1980s and he became titled as a Servant of God while the confirmation of his life of heroic virtue enabled for Pope Francis to name him as Venerable on 16 June 2017. Beniamino Filon was born in Balduina di San Urbano on 2 August 1900 as the eighth of ten children to the modest farmers Giacomo Filon (d. 11 March 1924) and Giuseppina Marin (d. 31 July 1932) who were married in Padua on 24 March 1887. He received baptism on 5 August 1900 from Cristiano Sartori with the names Beniamino Angelo; his godparents were Angelo Bertoet and Maddalena Sartori. On 18 April 1910 he received his Confirmation from the Bishop of Padua Luigi Pellizzo and then his First Communion on 2 April 1911 in his hometown from Eugenio Bau. Filon attended school from 1906 until 1909 and then attended school in Lendinara from 1910 until 1914. It was in Lendinara that he had his first encounters with friars from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin; he became impressed with their order and so began visiting them and decided that he wished to enter their order which he did on 13 October 1917 with the beginning of his ecclesial studies in Rovigo. On 20 March 1918 he was called to Milan for mandated service with the armed forces due to World War I. He remained in the armed forces for his service until 1921.