The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-02-29
Father Leo Gets Martyrs Crown.

california street. Denver, Colo.
Father Leo Gets Martyrs Crown.
Especial Correspondence by Elizabetl
Kelly)[
AS truly as ever saint of old earned
a martyrs crown for the faith that is
founded on sacrifice, the faith that tbs
crucifixion Of Christ purchased for the
erring son Of man, Father Francis Lee
Beinrichs, o. F. M, known in religion
as Father Leo, suffered the death of a
martyr in the sanctuary of st. Eliza
beths church last Sunday morning,
where he was shot and killed while
giving holy communion.
His assassin, Giuseppe Alio, an an
archist, was captured at the door of
the church by E. J. Quigley, a con-
ductor for the Denver & Rio Grande
railroad, assisted by Policeman Daniel
Cronin, and taken to the city Jail.
Even the fact that Alio will meet
speedy punishment, and that retribu-
ton sure and swift is bound to be his
does not make any less keen the con-
sternation among the citizens of Den
yer, Catholic and Protestant, who re-
sent the Staying of a Catholic priest
even as he was lifting his hand to bless
a communicant at the sanctuary rail.
Alio was taken to Colorado Springs at
noon Sunday, because feeling had run
so high that mob violence was feared.
And it is a significant fact that it
was not among Catholics that sum
mary punishment was suggested, but
by disinterested parties, men who de-
clared the killing the foulest plot on
the police annals of. the country.
For the tragedy enacted in the dim
recesses of St Elizabeth's church last
Cl1ndav b1C M TlaT-o Ilpl in al biSto,-x-
and the double crime of Alio having
desecrated the Holy Eucharist the in
stant he fired the shot which terminal
ed the priests life, makes him stand
absolutely without sympathy before
the world.
The most horrible desecration of
Catholic churches i'm the times of the |
French revolution, when they were pill |
laged right and left is the only record |
i'm history which can be compared to |
the terrible sacrilege which prefaced |
the actual murder of Father Leo.
The story is dramatic in the extreme.
Giuseppe Alio awoke from a troubled |
sleep last Sunday morning when the !
chimes Of St Elizabeth's church called |
the faithful to prayer. Two full hours |
before he was awake Father Leo. the
pastor of St Elizabeths church. was
meditating i'm his bare little room in
the monastery which adjoins the
church. Father Leo was a devout man.
He was awake even before his associ-
ates had stirred, although the monks
never sleep after the sun is up. Before
6 o'clock he was in the sacristy of the
church donning the sacred vestments
The little acolytes, Joseph Hines and
Joseph Miller, were putting on their
surplices when an Italian, small and
pinched. walked up the aisle
He was one Of the faithful arriving
early, they thought, and went right on.
The man was Alio. He had come
early that he might select a pew in
which to compete his plans for the as
Of the priest. He possibly
thought there would be a sermon for
he knelt close to the pulpit and fire.
quently looked un in that direction.
The faithful. the men and women
who had left their homes before day.
light TO assist at early mass, came |
gradually TO the church but they did [
Tot notice Allie. In fact there was /
nothing unusual about the man. He i
melt when the others knelt, he stood
When the Others stood, he sat when the J
ther sat, he bowed his head when I
he others bowed theirs at the solemn
'arts Of the holy mass. '
Then came the bell calling the de- /
out to the communion rail. Alio left t
us pew and clasping his hands as the
most plous might be expected to do he Y
ook his place at the railing between Y
wO women. Still no one turned a GU T
ious eye upon him. Heads were @
owed while the door of the tabernacle Q
'as opened and the ciborium taken Q
rom its curtained receses. O
Alio cid not look uD. He took thA
communion cloth which was flung ovar O.
ne railing and put it under his chin. d
The sacred host was laid on his 6
Dngue with the solemn words. "Corpus +
'omini nostri Jesus Christi custodian n
nimam mean in vitamn aeternam. h
men, =
The priest passed to the next comnu-