holiness: Someone who refused to allow spoiled rice to be distributed to poor people. The head of the Vatican's saint-making office, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, presided over the beatification ceremony Sunday at one of the pontifical basilicas in Rome, St. Paul Outside the Walls. The event drew Congolese pilgrims and much of Rome's Congolese Catholic community, who will be treated to a special audience Monday with Pope Leo XIV.

Floribèrt Bwana Chui Bin Kositi was kidnapped and killed in 2007 after he refused to allow rancid rice from Rwanda to be transported across the border to the eastern Congo city of Goma. As an official with the Congolese government's custom's quality control office, the 26-year-old knew the risks of resisting bribes offered to public officials. But he also knew the risks of allowing spoiled food to be distributed to the most desperate.

"On that day, those mafiosi found themselves in front of a young man who, in the name of the Gospel, said 'No'. He opposed," his friend Aline Manani said. "And Floribèrt, I think that for me personally, I would say for all young people, is a role model." (Jamaica Gleaner)