Vatican City, Jan 3, 2018 / 19:00 pm
One of the Church's great media missionaries of the 20th century, Fr. Piero Gheddo, died last month at the age of 88. Gheddo died on Dec. 20, after more than half a century of work in Catholic media apostolates.
An Italian member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), Gheddo was the editor of missionary magazines, a founder of communications agencies, and a prolific author, whose books were translated into 30 languages.
In his autobiography, "Special Envoy To the Borders of Faith," he wrote: "I do not deny the enormous problems we are enduring, but let us try to read them through God's lenses... Authentic faith says that the history of humanity, as well as our little personal history and the millenary history of the Church, are in the hands of God."
Gheddo advocated for the beatification of several missionaries, among them Clemente Vismara, a missionary to Burma, and that of Mario Vergara, a missionary to Laos. In 2006, Bishop Enrico Masseroni of Vercelli began a cause for beatification of Gheddo's own parents, Rosetta Franzi (1902-1934) and Giovanni Gheddo (1900-1942).