1900 - Cesidio da Fossa Giacomantonio

July 4, 1900

Hengyang, Hunan

Cesidio da Fossa Giacomantonio. [CRBC]

Cesidio da Fossa Giacomantonio was born on August 30, 1873 in Fossa Aquilana, Italy. As a small boy he made frequent visits to the nearby Franciscan monastery in Ocre, felling strangely drawn to God through the rituals and traditions he witnessed there. As Cesidio grew older he felt called to the Franciscan way of life, joining as a postulant at the age of 18. In 1892 he made his first commitment to Christ, and after several years of study he was ordained a priest in 1897.

The following year the leader of the Franciscan missionary outreach summoned him to Rome. He learned how eager they were to recruit new workers for the mission field, and he agreed to go if it was God’s will. In 1899 he met Luigi Sonsini, who was a veteran China missionary and the Vicar Apostolic of eastern Hebei Province. Sonsini answered many of the young Italian’s questions, and in October of the same year Giacomantonio left for China, arriving at Hengyang in Hunan Province on Christmas Day 1899. It was to be the last Christmas he would celebrate in this world.

After several months of language study, Cesidio da Fossa Giacomantonio was sent to a small community in the eastern part of the province. Hardly a month had passed when

“rumours of persecution began to circulate and the Boxer rebels made a surprise attack on the main residence in Hengyang on July 4, 1900…. Cesidio rushed to the chapel without considering his own danger. The fanatic crowd wounded him with lances and sticks and then wrapped him, half dead, in a blanket soaked in petrol. Thus they set it afire and completed his martyrdom before he had completed his 27th year.”[1]

1. CRBC, The Newly Canonized Martyr-Saints of China, 76-77.