VERSIGLIA, LUIGI. - Salesian, bishop, martyr, b. at Olivo Gessi (diocese of Tortona) on June 5, 1873, killed at Linchow on Feb. 25, 1930.
Having entered the Salesians in 1888 and been ordained a priest, after his studies at Foglizzo and at the Gregorian University, in 1895 he devoted himself for a decade to the formation of the novices of his Congregation and to various ministries, until in 1906 he left for China to found a Chinese mission at Macao. In 1920 he was elected and consecrated apostolic vicar of the new vicariate of Shinchow, where he labored with all zeal and all his energies.
His companion in martyrdom was the Salesian Callisto Caravario, b. at Cuorgnè (diocese of Turin) on Jan. 8, 1903, who entered the Salesians in 1918, went to China in 1924, and was ordained a priest in 1929.
Having set out from Shinchow to visit the Christian community of Linchow, Msgr. V., Fr. Caravario and three Chinese girls, one of them a religious catechist, were surprised, during a stretch of their journey by boat, by Chinese bandits, who forced them to put in to shore; then they demanded a large sum from the bishop, but afterward, seeing the girls, they changed their minds and tried to abduct them. The two missionaries opposed them and tried to defend the girls with their own bodies; but the bandits, in a fury, beat them mercilessly, bound them and killed them with rifle shots. The cause of beatification of the two missionaries was introduced on June 13, 1952.