Blessed Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve

Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve (16 February 1916 – 2 October 1989) was a Colombian Roman Catholic prelate who was a professed member of the Xaverian Missionaries of Yarumal and served as the Bishop of Arauca from 1984 until his assassination. Jaramillo was a staunch opponent of the E.L.N. and spoke out against their atrocities in the midst of conflict and a drug war. But this led to him being marked for death and he was killed not long after being kidnapped and tortured. Jaramillo's cause for beatification opened in 2000. He was titled as a Servant of God and his beatification was dependent on whether or not the cause could prove if Jaramillo was killed "in odium fidei" (in hatred of the faith). Pope Francis confirmed his beatification in mid-2017 and the pope himself beatified Jaramillo during the papal visit to Colombia on 8 September 2017 in Villavicencio. Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve was born in 1916 in Colombia. He commenced his ecclesial studies in February 1929 and made his first vows into the Xaverian Missionaries of Yaramul on 3 December 1936. His period of novitiate spanned from 1935 to 1936. Jaramillo became a member of the Xaverian Missionaries of Yaramul on 3 December 1944 after he had been ordained to the priesthood on the morning of 1 September 1940; his perpetual profession came later in February 1946. Jaramillo celebrated his first Mass on 8 September in his hometown. His first assignment after ordination was to serve as a pastor at Sabanalarga while he completed his theological studies in Bogotá from 1942 to 1944 when he received his doctorate. It was also at this time that he served as a chaplain and adviser at a female prison. In 1945 he was made the spiritual director of seminarians and a couple of months later was made the novice master. In 1945 he was made a professor of dogmatics and Sacred Scripture and he also taught Hebrew and Greek.