Twenty-year-old Father Ghibaudo went to confession and offered Mass in Boves, Italy, on the morning of Sept. 19, 1943. Hours later, he found himself rushing to help orphans escape to the countryside as German soldiers burned down 350 buildings in the Italian mountain town south of Turin.

The young priest returned to the town to preserve the consecrated sacred Hosts, offering absolution to people he encountered. As he approached a man who had been shot in the back of the head to give him absolution in articulo mortis, the priest himself was shot with a machine gun. A soldier further stamped on the priests face with his boots and stabbed him, killing him only three months after his ordination to the priesthood.

Ghibaudo died while ministering as a priest, fulfilling the call he felt when he received his First Communion and later wrote about when he was a high school student: Becoming a priest, living as a priest, dying as a priest: this is the synthesis of the dearest hopes I conceive for my life.

After Italy surrendered to the Allies in September 1943, two German soldiers were captured as armed clashes broke out in the mountains of Boves between Nazi soldiers and a group of Italian partisans. German Major Joseph Peiper threatened the destruction of Boves if the two soldiers were not released.

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They died praying for others: Two Catholic priests martyred by Nazis beatified in Italy - Catholic News Agency