By Matters India Reporter
VATICAN CITY, May 23, 2026: Salesian Father Costantino Vendrame, an Italian who served as a missionary in northeastern India for three decades, has been declared Venerable, the second stage in the four-phase canonization process in the Catholic Church.
Pope Leo XIV on May 22 authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree concerning the missionary’s heroic virtues.
The new status recognizes Father Vendrame as a missionary of hope among the people, said Father Pierluigi Cameorni, postulator general for the Causes of Saints of the Salesian Family.
“Through personal contact, he conveyed the love of the Lord’s compassionate heart, convinced that ‘the Heart of Christ […] is the living core of the first proclamation,’” Father Cameorni was quoted as saying by ANS, a Salesian news service published in Rome.
Father Vendrame, who died Jan. 30, 1957, at age 63 in Dibrugarh, Assam, traveled on foot to the most remote villages in northeastern India, helping the poor and bringing them the Gospel’s hope. He was born in San Martino di Colle Umberto in Italy’s Treviso province.
“He was held in high esteem not only by Christians, but also by people of other faiths, who regarded him as a true man of God,” ANS reported.
Father Vendrame served as a parish priest in Meghalaya and Tamil Nadu in southern India.
Because he was Italian, the British colonial rulers imprisoned him during World War II. He was first in the custody of the Gurkhas, then in Deoli, Rajasthan, and finally in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
He suffered from osteoarthritis that caused excruciating pain. He was hospitalized in Dibrugarh, where he died Jan. 30, the eve of the feast of St. John Bosco.
He first joined the Diocese of Ceneda as a seminarian and entered the Salesians four years later, motivated by his desire to become a missionary.
He made his first vows in 1914 and perpetual vows six years later. He served as a soldier during World War I.
He was ordained a priest March 15, 1924, in Milan. On Oct. 5 that year, he received the missionary crucifix in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin.
He arrived in Shillong on Dec. 24, 1924.
Father Vendrame was compared to Saints Paul, Francis Xavier and Vincent de Paul, ANS reported.
(Photo supplied)