Nicolò Cortese

After his ordination, Father Placido first exercised his ministry as a vicar at the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua from 1931 to 1933, dedicating himself particularly to the sacrament of reconciliation and the spiritual guidance of youth. In December 1933, his superiors sent him to Milan to serve the parish of the Immacolata e Sant'Antonio (Viale Corsica), which was then under construction. In January 1937, he was recalled to Padua to take over the direction of the famous magazine Il Messaggero di Sant'Antonio (The Messenger of Saint Anthony). Under his leadership, which continued until July 1943, the magazine experienced exceptional growth, with its circulation increasing from 200,000 to nearly 800,000 subscribers. In 1939, he also founded the Tipografia antoniana (Antonian Printing House) in order to modernize the publishing activity of the Franciscan province. During the Second World War, following the occupation of Yugoslavia and the establishment of the fascist concentration camp of Chiesanuova (in the suburbs of Padua), Father Placido was tasked by the Apostolic Nuncio to Italy, Monsignor Francesco Borgongini Duca, with providing spiritual and material assistance to Slovenian and Croatian internees. After the armistice of September 8, 1943, faced with the German occupation and Nazi-fascist persecution, his charitable work transformed into a vast clandestine rescue network. From his confessional in the Basilica of Padua, he coordinated the escape of hundreds of people: Jews, escaped Allied soldiers, political prisoners, and refugees. Contacts approached him under the pretext of confession and used secret codes (for example, asking for "five eggs" meant that false identity papers needed to be made for that many people to allow them to cross the Swiss border). He collaborated closely with the local resistance (notably the FRA-MA group) and surrounded himself with devoted collaborators, among whom were the Martini sisters and Maria Borgato.

Although warned of the extreme risks he was incurring and of police surveillance, Father Placido refused to interrupt his rescue work. On October 8, 1944, around 1:55 PM, two Gestapo agents (posing as partisans in need of help) lured him out of the grounds of the Basilica of Saint Anthony, near the Magnolia Cloister. He was forced into a car that took him directly to the Gestapo headquarters at Piazza Oberdan in Trieste.

Incarcerated in the Gestapo bunker, he was subjected for several weeks to appalling interrogations and barbaric torture aimed at forcing him to denounce his accomplices and the beneficiaries of his network. Father Placido met his tormentors with a heroic and absolute silence, thereby protecting the lives of his collaborators. He died under torture at the beginning of November 1944 (historians place his death between November 3 and 15). His body was subsequently burned in the crematorium oven of the Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp in Trieste, and his ashes were scattered.

The cause for the beatification and canonization of Father Placido Cortese was officially opened in the diocese of Trieste. The diocesan inquiry into his life, virtues, and alleged martyrdom began on January 29, 2002, and concluded on November 15, 2003. On August 30, 2021, Pope Francis received in audience Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and authorized the promulgation of the decree recognizing the heroic virtues of the Servant of God, thereby declaring him Venerable.

The spirituality of Father Placido Cortese is based on a Franciscan charity lived without limits or distinctions of race, religion, or nationality. The decree on his heroic virtues highlights his confident abandonment to the will of God and his supernatural optimism in the midst of trials. His confessional, which became both the place of divine mercy and the center of a network of temporal salvation, remains the symbol of his double fidelity to God and to men.

Nicknamed the 'Kolbe of Cherso' or the 'martyr of silence', he has received numerous civil and religious tributes. In 1946, British General Alexander awarded him a certificate of gratitude for the aid provided to Allied forces. In 1948, Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš awarded him the Bronze Cross posthumously. In January 2021, a Stolperstein (stumbling stone) was sealed in front of the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua, at the exact location of his abduction, to perpetuate the memory of his sacrifice.