ROME (JTA) — An Italian Roman Catholic priest has been honored posthumously as a Righteous Among the Nations.
Monsignor Maurizio Michele Raffa, who died in 1957 at the age of 51, was honored for having hidden the Jewish Di Castro family in 1943-44, thus saving them from deportation by the Nazi occupiers.
Israel’s ambassador to Italy, Gideon Meir, made the presentation on Nov. 23 to Raffa’s nephew in a ceremony conducted at the church in Rome where Raffa served as priest.
Taking part in the ceremony were Jewish community leaders and a member of the family that Raffa saved.
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