Alojzije Palić
Alojzije Palić was a Kosovo Croat Franciscan and Catholic priest in Albania and martyr, murdered by Montenegrin soldiers in 1913. He was beatified in Shkodër on 16 November 2024, together with don Ivan Gazula.
Biography
He was born as Matej Palić in Janjevo to Janjevci family of Toma and Paulina Palić. He enters Franciscan novitiate on 23 Septembre 1896, taking religious name Alojzije. He studied philosophy in Shkodër and theology in Bologne and Parma. Palić took his lifelong vows on 8 December 1901, and was ordained a priest on 20 April 1902, in Parma.Upon completing his studies, he returned to his province, where he was a parish vicar in the Archdiocese of Skhoder from 1905 to 1907. He later served as a parish priest in Baz and Đakovica, where he was also rector of the hospice, and from 1911 to 1913 in Peć and Glođane.
As a parson in Glođane, he opposed the forced conversion of Muslims in the surrounding villages by the Orthodox. For this, he was arrested on March 4, 1913, and spent several days in prison in Peć, where he was beaten and tortured, and forced to renounce his priesthood and Catholic faith in order to convert to the Orthodoxy. On March 7, 1913, even before the trial, he was killed by Montenegrin soldiers near the village of Janoš. He was buried immediately, and only after four months was his body found and transferred to the church in Zjum, in southwestern Kosovo.