In the past week alone, more than 3,000 people have died in Italy after contracting the coronavirus. Among the dead are at least 60 priests this month, according to local media reports.

“I pray to the Holy Spirit to give us the gift of light and strength. Everyday I do the Via Crucis asking the Lord … to carry this cross with us,” Bishop Gianni Ambrosio of Piacenza-Bobbio said in an Italian interview. Avvenire, the newspaper owned by the Italian bishops conference, published the names of 51 diocesan priests who died after contracting COVID-19, and noted that religious communities in Italy had also reported nine coronavirus related deaths.

The majority of the deceased were over the age of 70 years old, and some of these priests had underlying health conditions.

The youngest priest to die from COVID-19 in Italy was Fr Paolo Camminati, who died in the hospital on March 21 at age 53. Fr Camminati was known for his dynamic youth ministry, service to the poor, work with Catholic Action, and passion for the mountains. He was the parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes in Diocese of Piacenza, where five other priests with COVID-19 have died.

Among the dead in Piacenza is Fr KidaneBerhane, a Cistercian monk originally from Eritrea, who resided in the historic Chiaravalle Abbey in Lombardy. Also deceased are 87-year-old twin brothers, Fr Mario Boselli and Fr Giovanni Boselli, who died within a day of each other.