BLASUCCI, DOMENICO, venerable. - A Redemptorist student, regarded as the Luigi Gonzaga of the Redemptorist Missionaries, born on 5 March 1732 at Ruvo del Monte in Lucania, died 2 Nov. 1752. As a novice in 1750 he outshone in virtue his more experienced brethren, who nevertheless, as Fr. Landi observes, “were angels.” During his brief stays at Ciorani, Deliceto, Pagani, and Caposele, he lived
in a kind of continual ecstasy; every day he took scarcely a couple of ounces of food, seasoned with wormwood. Innocent as at Baptism, he scourged himself harshly for sinners, who were moved to contrition merely by seeing him on Mission. He was a friend of s. Gerardo Maiella and a disciple of the austere Fr. CAFFARO (v.), who announced to s. Alfonso the death of the angelic young man, declaring: “He was heroic in everything, so much so that he might have been canonized while still alive.” His cause of beatification was introduced on 25 May 1906.