Martyrs of China – The Boxer Rebellion

St. Gregory Grassi, was a Franciscan missionary bishop from Bologna, Italy. After preparation for life as a missionary, he was sent to China where he became the Vicar Apostolic of the Shanxi Province. Along with a group of Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, among them Sr. Herminia Grivot, he and other Franciscan priests were seized during the so-called Boxer Rebellion. After suffering mutilations and humiliations, having been displayed to the public in cages, they were all beheaded. They were all canonized by Pope Paul II. The Franciscans remember them on July 8.