Giuseppe Girotti
Italian Dominican priest (1905-1945)
Feast: 1 April (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
The Vatican record
- 14 December 2023 — Martyrdom recognised (decree list, 2023)
Who they were
Giuseppe Girotti was born into a very poor family at Alba on 19 July 1905 and became a Dominican priest at 25. After biblical studies in Jerusalem and Rome he taught Scripture in Turin and served the poor, especially at the Hospice for Poor Old People.
Suspended from teaching in 1939, in the war he organised a wide network to help Jews, finding hiding places and papers so they could escape. Arrested and deported to Dachau, he survived six months amid humiliation and suffering, rosary in hand, still consoling and absolving others, and died there on 1 April 1945, perhaps by lethal injection.
The miracles
As a martyr, beatified without a miracle.
Why that counted as sanctity
A Dominican scholar who risked everything to save Jews and died a martyr in Dachau.
The cause
The cause continues. No postulation address is published here yet. Favours received through this person’s intercession, and offers of help, are best sent to the religious order or congregation they belonged to, or to the diocese where the cause was opened; either will pass them to the postulation.
Connected on this site
- Josef Beran Servant of God“Girotti was arrested in 1944 and moved from prison to prison before being imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp, where he befriended Josef Beran and Carlo Manziana.” — Wikipedia
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography: Giuseppe Girotti
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Wikidata Q3108058 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Giuseppe Girotti (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.