A 72-year-old Italian priest has died from COVID-19 after giving up a respirator that his parishioners purchased for him. Instead of using the respirator himself, he chose to give it to a younger patient in need.
Giuseppe Berardelli, 72, lived in Casigno in Italy’s hardest-hit Lombardy region. He recently died from the coronavirus.
Respirators are in extremely short supply. Parishioners concerned about the priest’s health worked to provide one. But then, Berardelli learned that there was a younger patient struggling to breathe because of the virus. He gave them his respirator instead.
We don’t know the condition nor the age of the other patient. However, we know that younger people who have access to respirators have a better chance of survival than older patients.
James Martin, a Jesuit priest from the US is the one who revealed what Berardelli had done and praised him on Twitter.
He wrote, “Fr. Giuseppe Berardelli, a 72-year-old priest who gave a respirator (that his parishioners had purchased for him), to a younger patient (whom he did not know), has died from #coronavirus.”
“Greater love has no person… (Jn 15:13)”
“He is a “Martyr of Charity,” a saint like St. Maximilian Kolbe, who in Auschwitz volunteered to take the place of a condemned man with a family, and was killed.”
“Don Giuseppe Berardelli, patron of those who suffer from coronavirus and all who care for them, pray for us!”
Fr. Giuseppe Berardelli, a 72-year-old priest who gave a respirator (that his parishioners had purchased for him), to a younger patient (whom he did not know), has died from #coronavirus.
“Greater love has no person…” (Jn 15:13) https://t.co/qXQ6knoE6n via @Araberara pic.twitter.com/uKxRNghire
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) March 24, 2020
With nearly 64,000 cases and more than 6,000 deaths now confirmed in Italy as a result of coronavirus, at least 60 of those were Italian priests, according to a report by the Catholic Herald.
Pope Francis, who recently had a coronavirus scare himself, called on Italian priests to “have courage to go out to the sick” during a Mass in early March. He said, “We pray to God also for our priests, so they have courage to go out to the sick, bringing the strength of the Word of God and the Eucharist.”
“To accompany the medical workers and volunteers in the work they are doing,” he continued. Unfortunately, it isn’t a job where most can choose to work from home.
Enrico Salmi, the bishop of Parma, said, “It is painful to see the priests fall sick. Sometimes it happens [to them] out of pastoral zeal. They enter the intensive care unit where, naturally, no one is supposed to go.”
Related: Pope Exposed to Coronavirus, Cancels Event After Getting Sick From Crowd
The Avvenire newspaper published the names of 51 diocesan priests on Sunday who had passed away from the virus. They noted nine more deaths reported across Italy in various religious communities.
The youngest of the priests to die was Paolo Camminati, 53. He was the parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes in Piacenza. Some of the priests reportedly had underlying health conditions. There were five other priests who tested positive for coronavirus who reportedly passed away in the same city.
“It is a tough trial…We feel great suffering,” said Bishop Gianni Ambrosio of Piacenza-Bobbio. “It is a darkness that we must face, but with the hope that God never abandons us, that he himself has gone through all the suffering to overcome it.”
