Secondo Pollo
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Caresanablot, Vercelli, Kingdom of Italy
Cervice, Turin, Kingdom of Italy
Secondo Pollo | |
|---|---|
| Priest | |
| Born | 8 January 1908 Caresanablot, Vercelli, Kingdom of Italy |
| Died | 26 December 1941 (aged 33) Cervice, Turin, Kingdom of Italy |
| Resting place | Vercelli Cathedral, Italy |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 23 May 1998, Vercelli, Italy by Pope John Paul II |
| Feast | 26 December |
| Patronage | Chaplains |
Secondo Pollo (2 January 1908 – 26 December 1941) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a chaplain who served in World War II. He died during a skirmish in 1941 in which a bullet struck him while he attended to a wounded comrade.[1]
Pollo received beatification from Pope John Paul II in 1998 during the latter's apostolic visit to Vercelli.
Secondo Pollo was born in 1908 in Vercelli. He had an intense love for the Eucharist as a child and desired to become a priest during that time.[2]
The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools oversaw his childhood education.[1] At the age of eleven in 1919 he commenced his studies for the priesthood and remained there until the completion of his high school studies. He began his theological studies in Rome and in 1931 graduated in philosophical studies at the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas and in theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University.[1][2] Those around him considered him to be a model seminarian.
He received the minor orders and the diaconate around the late 1920s or the earliest of the 1930s for he was ordained as a priest on 15 August 1931. He received his ordination from the Archbishop of Vercelli Giacomo Montanelli.[2] After Pollo's ordination he was tasked with teaching seminarians and from 1936 until in 1940 moved seminaries. Furthermore was also made an archdiocesan assistant of the Italian section of Catholic Action in September 1936.[1] He also served as a prison chaplain.[2]
The outbreak of World War II saw him request to become a chaplain in the ranks of soldiers despite the slight vision impairment he had.[1] Pollo was elevated as a lieutenant captain of the 3rd Battalion "Val Chisone" of the 6th Alpine Division Alpi Graie. His peers and superiors regarded Pollo as a different kind of individual who was capable of distinguishing himself and held him in high regard.[2]
On 26 December 1941 the battalion moved to Montenegro and then near Turin where he was struck when a bullet hit him as he tended to a wounded soldier.[1] It hit his femoral artery which led to him bleeding to death.[2] As he bled he said: "Look after the others; they're worse than I am". A comrade recorded Pollo's last words he whispered: "I am going to God who is so good".[2] Pollo bowed his head and died. He was buried and then reinterred in 1961 until he was placed in the Vercelli Cathedral in 1968.
