ROME >> The Vatican on Sunday beatified a Congolese customs worker who was killed for resisting a bribe, giving young people in a place with endemic corruption a new model of 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 of Floribèrt Bwana Chui Bin Kositi on Sunday at one of the pontifical basilicas in Rome, St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The event attracted a cheering crowd of Congolese pilgrims and much of Rome’s Congolese Catholic community, who will be treated to a special audience today with Pope Leo XIV.

— The Associated Press