Father Giulio Berutti of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (Photo from AsiaNews)
By LiCAS.news
Aug 13 2021
An Italian missionary priest who established cooperative credit unions in parishes across Bangladesh died on Wednesday, August 11, due to complications from COVID-19. He was 77.
A report from AsiaNews said Father Giulio Berutti of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions was recently discharged from the hospital after recovering from the coronavirus disease.
Bishop Sebastian Tudu of the Diocese of Dinajpur said the priest stayed at the PIME house in Dhaka but got sick after three days.
Father Berutti was from Busto Arsizio in northern Italy. He was ordained priest on June 27, 1970, and arrived in Bangladesh as a missionary right after the country’s war of independence.
In Bangladesh, the priest established cooperative credit unions in parishes in the Diocese of Dinajpur.
The institutions offered loans with an annual interest rate of no more than 12 percent, half that of traditional banks and much less than the Grameen Bank of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.
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