Alessandro Dordi
Feast: 25 August (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Alessandro Dordi was born at Gromo San Marino, in the Val Seriana, on 22 January 1931, and ordained on 12 June 1954 as a member of the Bergamo diocese's missionary community. He served in the diocese of Chioggia and among Italian emigrants at Le Locle in Switzerland until 1980.
He then went to Peru, to the Santa valley north of Chimbote, where without any political activity he protected the weakest and formed groups of the faithful. This drew the hatred of the Shining Path guerrillas, who killed him on 25 August 1991; in his last moment he spoke words of pity to his killers.
The miracles
As a martyr he was raised to the altars without a miracle.
Why that counted as sanctity
A missionary priest killed by the Shining Path for protecting the poor of Peru.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography: Alessandro Dordi
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - beatification of 5 December 2015
- Wikidata Q19947062 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
Checked against the sources listed on 22 September 2026. Corrections welcome.