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<img height='175' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1673.jpg'> 
Father Giuseppe Puglisi Scott 1673 (2018)</center>
 
October 21 marks the feast day of Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi, a Roman Catholic priest who was assassinated by Mafia gunmen on the island of Sicily in 1993. He is the first person killed by the Mafia who has been beatified by the Catholic Church.
 
"Pino" Puglisi was born in Palermo, Sicily, on September 15, 1937. He was raised in the Palermo neighborhood of Brancaccio, a rough, working class section of the city. He was ordained a priest in 1960 by Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini of Palermo, who viewed communism as the bigger threat in his archdiocese than the Mafia (he in fact denied the existence of the Mafia). This denial spurred Puglisi to challenge church authorities with regard to the need to address this threat. He is quoted as saying: "we can, we must criticize the church when we feel it doesn't respond to our expectations, because it's absolutely right to seek to improve it".
 
In 1990, Father Puglisi was transferred to his old neighborhood and became the pastor of San Gaetano's Parish in Brancaccio. He repeatedly spoke out against the Mafia, and opened a center for underprivileged children to shelter them from the influences of the Mafia. With little support from the archdiocese of Palermo, Puglisi attempted to break the "code of silence" (or "omertà") to expose the negative influences affecting his parishioners. His "reward" for these efforts was his execution by the Mafia on September 15, 1993, his 56th birthday. Shot at point-blank range, Father Puglisi's last words were reported to have been "I've been expecting you".
 
In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI allowed the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints to designate Father Puglisi as a martyr, with the Pope saying Father Puglisi had been killed "in hatred of the faith". As a martyr, Father Puglisi could be beatified (the last step before sainthood) without a miracle being attributed to his intercession with God. His beatification took place on May 25, 2013.
 
References: 
 
Wikipedia.com, <a href= 
'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pino_Puglisi'>Pino Puglisi</a>
 
UFN, October 3, 1995, <a href=
'https://vaticanstamps.org/UFN/images/2018-2-02-1.jpg'>25th Anniversary of the Death of Blessed Fr. Giuseppe Puglisi</a>
 
Vatican Philatelic Society website, www.vaticanstamps.org, Stamp Database Search
 
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<img height='175' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1673M.jpg'> 
Father Giuseppe Puglisi Minisheet, Scott 1673M (2018)</center>

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