VATICAN CITY - Today, 01 July 2010, Pope
Benedict XVI received Archbishop Angelo Amato,
sdb, prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints, in
a private audience. During that audience, the Holy Father authorized the
Congregation to promulgate sixteen decrees on miracles, martyrdoms,
and heroic virtues.
UPDATE: CAUSES WITHOUT NIHIL OBSTAT AND NEW MARTYRS PAGE
28 April 2010
Six beatification and canonization causes have
been added to the website database. They include an Italian Comboni
Missionary priest killed for defending the rights of the
indigenous Suruí people of Rondônia (Brazil); a Slovak diocesan priest
who died in prison when the country was under Communist rule; a
Hungarian diocesan priest who promoted the Eucharistic spirituality in
Budapest; and two Polish Salvatorian Sisters killed by Red Army soldiers
for upholding their vow of chastity. Click
here to
see the list.
The Hagiography Circle is currently working on
a new page that would preserve the memory of alleged martyrs of the
faith who currently are not proposed for beatification and canonization.
Honoring the memory of the martyrs of the second millennium was a
summons of the Church as it prepared itself for the celebration of the
Jubilee Year in 2000. Pope John Paul II wrote: “At the end of the second
millennium, the Church has once again become a Church of martyrs. The
persecutions of believers ― priests, Religious and laity ― has caused a
great sowing of martyrdom in different parts of the world. The witness
to Christ borne even to the shedding of blood has become a common
inheritance of Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants. . . .
This witness must not be forgotten. . . . In our own century the martyrs
have returned, many of them nameless, ‘unknown soldiers’ as it were of
God’s great cause. As far as possible, their witness should not be lost
to the Church. . . . The local Churches should do everything possible to
ensure that the memory of those who have suffered martyrdom should be
safeguarded, gathering the necessary documentation” (Tertio Millennio
Adveniente, 37). During the last eight years, the Hagiography Circle
had gathered lists of martyrs submitted by dioceses, religious
congregations, and ecclesial associations to the now-defunct Commission
on New Martyrs from 1994 to 2000. New names had been added by these to
these lists since 2000. The Circle continue to do further research
into the lives and witness of these alleged martyrs in its desire to
provide a page that would honor and preserve their memory. The lists
will be released soon in the following
link.
Rev. Francisco Ortiz Gómez, vicar general of the archdiocese of Seville,
announced yesterday that the Holy See has authorized the beatification
of Ven.
María de la Purísima Salvat Romero (1926-98). The solemn
celebration will take place in Seville on 18 September, at 10:00 a.m.
Further details on the ceremony will be determined in the following
months.
María Isabel Salvat came from a distinguished
upper class family from Madrid that was forced to flee Spain for two
years after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. In 1944, she
went to Seville to begin her religious formation in the Company of the
Cross, the congregation founded by St. Ángela of the Cross Guerrero
González whose members were dedicated to the care of the impoverished
and “becoming poor with the poor.” She took the name María de la
Purísima of the Cross and made final vows in 1952. Because of her
leadership skills, devotion to alleviating the poor, and spiritual
maturity, she was entrusted with various administrative duties,
appointed director of novices and provincial, and voted as general
councilor. In 1977, Purísima Salvat became the superior general of
the Company of the Cross, a responsibility she held until her death in
1998. During her term, she endeavored to root her congregation firmly in
the charism of St. Ángela and to foster her heritage within the
sisterhood. “In everything, Mother Purísima was always a faithful and
ideal disciple of St. Ángela of the Cross. Constant in her life was an
intimacy with God, to whom she gave herself without any limit. She
led her life quietly in humility and sought to draw no attention to herself.
She knew how to remain always hidden in the background, living out the
St. Ángela’s spirituality of ‘no ser (not being).’”
The beatification cause of Ven. Purísima Salvat is
among the fastest that the Congregation of Causes of Saints has processed.
Initiated by the archdiocese of Seville in 2004, the CCS
promulgated the decree recognizing her practice of heroic virtues on 17
January 2009. 0n 27 March of this year, the congregation promulgated the
decree recognizing a miracle attributed to her intercession. The
recipient was Ana María Rodríguez Casado, a child
from La Palma del Condado (Huelva) born without an inferior vena
cava and with a congenital heart disease. In early 2004, at the age of
three years and ten months, she had a cardiac arrest after her pacemaker
broke. She was rushed to the Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville where
she further suffered an acute pulmonary edema, Stoke-Adams syndrome, and
neurological sequelae resulting from lack of oxygen to the brain. After
attending physicians gave her up for dead, Ana María’sfamily returned her to La Palma. With the encouragement of
a religious from the Company of the Cross, the child’s mother and
grandmother sought the intercession of Ven. Purísima Salvat.
Shortly afterward, Ana María completely
recovered. Doctors who later checked the child described her instantaneous and
permanent healing as “exceptional, unforeseen, and
inexplicable.”
SIXTEEN DECREES PROMULGATED
27 March 2010
VATICAN CITY - Today, 27 March 2010, Pope
Benedict XVI received Archbishop Angelo Amato,
sdb, prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints, in
a private audience. During that audience, the Holy Father authorized the
Congregation to promulgate sixteen decrees on miracles, martyrdoms,
and heroic virtues.
INITIATION OF BEATIFICATION PROCESS OF DANIELE BADIALI
19 March 2010
Bishop Claudio Stagni of the diocese of Faenza-Modigliana will preside
over a Mass on 20 March at the Cathedral of Faenza which will initiate
the beatification process of
Daniele
Badiali (1962-97), a diocesan priest killed in Peru while serving
the South American church as a Fidei Donum missionary.
Daniele’s world expanded beyond his rural
setting when, at the age of fifteen, he began participating in summer
camps sponsored by Operation Mato Grosso, a non-denominational
organization with Salesian origins that offer young people volunteer
opportunities to directly help and serve the poor in South America.
Although he would not leave for mission work in Peru until 1984, his
involvement with Mato Grosso significantly molded his altruistic
character. He volunteered his services during relief efforts in Friuli
and Irpinia after the earthquakes struck these areas in 1978 and 1980
respectively. It was during his time in Peru that Daniele discerned a
calling to the priesthood. He returned to Italy in 1986 to begin his
seminary formation and studies. After his ordination in June 1991 as a
priest of the diocese of Faenza-Modigliana, he returned to Peru in
August as a Fidei Donum missionary and served as pastor of San Luis. The
territory under his pastoral care consisted of sixty villages scattered
in the mountainous province of Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald. He gave
himself completely to raising and defending the human dignity of his
marginalized parishioners, visiting them regularly in spite travel
difficulties and dangers to celebrate the sacraments and show his
solidarity with them. He wrote to his relatives in September 1992: “It
is the poor who lead me directly to Jesus. . . . A pastor is called to
carry within him their great pain while, on the same time, not to lose
any of the sheep entrusted to him by Jesus.” On the evening of 16 March
1997, while driving back from Sunday liturgy in Yauya in the company of
several catechists and foreign volunteers, his jeep was blocked by
masked armed men. The bandits wanted to take an Italian volunteer,
Rosamaria Picozzi, as hostage but Daniele offered himself in her place.
They demanded a huge ransom for his release but, on realizing that the
police was closing in on them, they executed Daniele. His body was found
two days after the abduction, with hands bound at the back and a gunshot
wound to the neck.
BEATIFICATION OF CARDINAL NEWMAN
17 March 2010
The date of the beatification of Venerable
John Henry
Newman (1801-90) was revealed at a press briefing held by the
British Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 16 March, a few hours after Buckingham Palace officially
announced Pope Benedict XVI’s State Visit to the United Kingdom. The
pope himself will preside over the ceremony – a first for his
pontificate – which will take place at the Coventry Airport in West
Midlands, England, on 19 September. The briefing was hosted by the
Honorable Jim Murphy, MP, Secretary of State for Scotland, alongside Cardinal Keith O’Brien, President of the Bishops’ Conference of
Scotland, and Archbishop Vincent Nichols, President of the Bishops’
Conference of England and Wales.
Born, educated, and ordained in the Church of
England, Newman was recognized by his contemporaries as one of the foremost Anglican
preachers and writers of the period. In the company of several
religious leaders and literati, he spearheaded the Oxford Movement
(also known as the Tractarian Movement) to reinvigorate the Church
of England through liturgical reform, doctrinal
soundness, and resistance to state interference. Out of a conviction
formed by both faith and serious studies, Newman decided to convert
to
Roman Catholicism in 1843, being baptized after two years of
discernment in October 1845. Drawn to the life and spirituality
of St. Philip Neri, Newman did his novitiate with the Oratorians in
Rome and was ordained a Catholic priest in February 1848. A few
months later, he returned to England and founded the first English
Oratory in Maryvale (near Oscott, Birmingham). Despite the suspicion
– even hostility – of leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in England against
him, Newman undertook projects for the intellectual development of
the small Catholic population in the kingdom. It was during this
period that he produced two of his most influential writings:
Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864) and Grammar of Assent
(1870). In recognition of his contributions to the revitalization of
Roman Catholicism in the United Kingdom, Pope Leo XIII created him
a cardinal in May 1879. After his death in 1890, Newman received
accolades from every sector of British society. The
Cork Examiner declared that “Cardinal Newman goes to his grave with
the singular honour of being by all creeds and classes acknowledged
as the just man made perfect.” Rev. Richard W. Church, dean of the
Anglican Cathedral of St. Paul’s, wrote this obituary for The
Guardian: “Cardinal Newman is dead, and we lose in him not only one
of the very greatest masters of English style, not only a man of
singular beauty and purity of character, not only an eminent example of
personal sanctity, but the founder, we may almost say, of the Church of
England as we see it. What the Church of England would have become
without the Tractarian movement we can faintly guess, and of the
Tractarian movement Newman was the living soul and the inspiring genius.
Great as his services have been to the communion in which he died, they
are as nothing by the side of those he rendered to the communion in
which the most eventful years of his life were spent.… He will be
mourned by many in the Roman Church, but their sorrow will be less than
ours, because they have not the same paramount reason to be grateful to
him.”
BEATIFICATION OF CHIARA BADANO
16 March 2010
Bishop Pier Giorgio Macchiardi of Acqui (Italy) announced that the
beatification of Ven.
Chiara
“Luce” Badano (1971-90) will take place on 25 September at the
Sanctuary of Our Lady of Divine Love (Madonna del Divin Amore) in Castel
di Leva, Rome, to be presided by Archb. Angelo Amato, prefect of the
Congregation of the Causes of Saints.
Athletic and sociable, Chiara
Badano spent most of her brief life in her native town of Sassello
(province of Savona, Italy). From childhood, she sought to center
her life on the Gospels and actively participate in the life of her
local church. At the age of nine, Chiara became part of GEN, the
youth branch of the Focolare Movement. The spirituality and vitality
of the association further deepened her commitment to the Word of
God, the practice of meditation, and the exercise of Christian
virtues. During secondary school (liceo classico), Chiara was
diagnosed with osetosarcoma. With faith, she accepted her fatal
illness and remained cheerful and hospitable even during its painful
and paralyzing spasmodic episodes. Relatives, friends, and attending
physicians attested to the extraordinary peace and luminous joy she
radiated from her room at the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital
in Turin. “I feel that God is asking me for something more,
something greater. I could be confined to this bed for years, I
don’t know. I am only interested in God’s will, doing that well in
the present moment: playing God’s game. . . . I was too taken
by ambition, projects, and who knows what else. Now they seem
meaningless, futile and temporary. . . now I
feel a part of a wonderful plan that is slowly revealing itself to
me.” Chiara spent her last days in her family’s house in Sassello.
Envisioning her death as a marriage, she chose a
bridal gown for her burial dress and the hymns and readings which transformed her funeral mass into a
celebration of life. Since her death in
October 1990, pilgrims from all over - both young and old -
continually visited her tomb at the town cemetery, drawn by her
reputation of holiness. The diocese of Acqui opened the canonical
inquiry for her beatification process in June 1999.
UNANIMOUS VOTE FOR DELILLE CAUSE
03 March 2010
Fifteen cardinals and bishops of the CCS who met in an ordinary
congregation on 02 March unanimously voted in favor of the cause of the Servant of God
Henriette
Delille (1812-62). The decisions affirmed the judgment of the
congress of theological consultants on 29 May 2009 that Delille
practiced virtues to a heroic degree.
According to canonical legislations, the
Secretary of the CCS will now draw up a report of the opinions of
the cardinals and bishops which would be later presented to the
pope. A papal ratification of their vote, which would likely take
place before Easter 2010, paves the way for the public promulgation
of the decree on heroic virtues. After that the title “Venerable”
could be officially given to Henriette Delille.
ORDINARY CONGREGATION OF CARDINALS TO DISCUSS HENRIETTE DELILLE
26 February 2010
The Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family announced that an
ordinary congregation of cardinals and bishops of the CCS will evaluate
the Positio of their founder, the Servant of God
Henriette
Delille (1812-62) on 02 March. If the majority of the prelates vote
favorably, the CCS will establish a date for the promulgation of the
decree recognizing her practice of heroic virtues.
A native of New Orleans (USA), Delille was the
offspring of the common-law union between an already married French
man and a Creole woman, an extralegal system called plaçage
sanctioned in antebellum Louisiana. Society expected her to enter
into a plaçage like her mother. Also, as a fair-skinned woman
of color, she could have passed herself of as white ― as her two
older siblings did. Instead, she denounced the plaçage out of
her Catholic convictions and openly claimed her black heritage. With
a group of like-minded women, she ministered to poor blacks of New
Orleans, both free and enslaved. On coming of age and after selling
the property she inherited, Delille and Juliette Gaudin laid the
foundations for a community of black women religious which would
continue the ministries in which they were engaged. Their project
met very strong opposition from fellow Catholics who ridiculed the
idea on racist grounds. With the help of Rev. Etienne Rousselon,
vicar-general of the diocese, the Sisters of the Holy Family
eventually received ecclesiastical recognition in 1842. However, ten
years elapsed before they were allowed to undergo a formal novitiate
with the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and publicly profess
religious vows in October 1852. Under Delille’s leadership, the
congregation grounded itself in the practices of religious life and
established schools, orphanages and a home for the elderly. Delille
died on 17 November 1862, a few months after Union forces captured
New Orleans during the American Civil War. Despite the long-standing
public acclaim of her holiness, the archdiocese of New Orleans
canonically opened her beatification process only in 1988.
BEATIFICATION OF MANUEL LOZANO GARRIDO
21 February 2010
Bishop Ramón del Hoyo López of Jaén (Spain) announced that the Vatican
Secretariat of State has favorably accepted his request to
establish the date for the beatification of the Venerable
Manuel
Lozano Garrido (1920-71). The solemn celebration will take place on
Saturday, 12 June, in the town of Linares, birthplace of the future
blessed.
“Lolo” (as he is fondly known) was a committed
member of Catholic Action and a budding journalist at 22 when he
suffered his first attack of chronic articular rheumatism. Confined
to a wheelchair, he nonetheless continued to animate young members
of Catholic Action and persisted in his writing career. Lolo’s
publications and joyful acceptance of illness drew many people ―
especially the young ― to visit him and seek his counsels. He
enthusiastically followed the proceedings of the Second Vatican
Council and helped those who were less open to the reforms to
understand and accept its decrees and constitutions. His illness,
however, continued to progress that, by the time he was in his 40s, he
had completely lost physical mobility and eyesight. Lolo
died in November 1971.
CLOSING AND OPENING OF PROCESSES OF CONCEPTIONIST NUNS
20 February 2010
On 03 February, the archdiocese of Madrid closed the diocesan inquiry on
the presumed martyrdom of the Servants of God
María Isabel Lacaba Andia and 13 companions,
professed nuns from the Order of the Immaculate Conception, who were
killed during the religious persecution in the Spanish Civil War.
Rev. Ricardo Quintana Bescós, head of the archdiocesan delegation
for Causes of Saints, presided over the canonical ceremony in the place
of Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela. Two of the presumed
martyrs came from the Conceptionist Monastery of El Pardo (Madrid),
while another two were from the Conceptionist Monastery of Escalona
(Toledo). Two of the presumed
martyrs came from the Conceptionist Monastery of El Pardo (Madrid),
while another two were from the Conceptionist Monastery of Escalona
(Toledo). The other ten belonged to the Conceptionist Monastery of
Las Rozas (Madrid). All were killed within the Community of Madrid
between August and November 1936.
The archdiocese will also open the diocesan inquiry on the life,
virtues, and reputation of holiness of the Servant of God
María Ana Alberdi (1912-98) on 04
March. Cardinal Rouco Valera will preside over the ceremony at the
Conceptionist Monastery of “La Latina” (Madrid). A vibrant woman
religious remembered for her spirit of prayer and humility, Alberdi
served as abbess of “La Latina” for 34 years and the first president
of the Castile Federation of the Order of the Immaculate Conception.
OPENING OF DIOCESAN PROCESS OF TITUS ZEMAN
19 February 2010
On 26 February, Archbishop Stanislav Zvolenský of Bratislava (Slovakia) will
formally open the diocesan inquiry on the presumed martyrdom of the
Servant of God
Titus Zeman (1915-69), a professed
priest of the Salesian Society of Don Bosco. The canonical
proceedings will take place at the hall of the Roman Catholic
Faculty of Theology of Cyril and Methodius at Comenius University.
After the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia banned the existence of
religious congregations in April 1950, Zeman organized secret
expeditions to bring young Salesians to Italy in order to continue
their formation and studies. Arrested and tortured for these
activities, Zeman was condemned as a “Vatican spy” and sentenced to
25 years of imprisonment in February 1952. Although conditionally
released from jail in March 1964, his health was permanently damaged
as a result of harsh imprisonment. During the remaining years of
his life, Zeman worked as a storekeeper but was given permission by
the Communist government to preside over public celebrations of the
Eucharist in 1968. From the time of his death in January 1969, his
reputation as a martyr persisted among the faithful.
ORDINARY PUBLIC CONSISTORY
19 February 2010
VATICAN CITY - At 11 a.m. (Central European Time) this
morning, in the Concistory Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, Pope
Benedict XVI held an ordinary public consistory during the celebration of
midday prayers for the canonization of six blesseds.
Rev. Francisco Ortiz Gómez, vicar general of the archdiocese of Seville,
announced yesterday that the Holy See has authorized the beatification
of Ven. 
Bishop Claudio Stagni of the diocese of Faenza-Modigliana will preside
over a Mass on 20 March at the Cathedral of Faenza which will initiate
the beatification process of
The date of the beatification of Venerable
Bishop Pier Giorgio Macchiardi of Acqui (Italy) announced that the
beatification of Ven.
Fifteen cardinals and bishops of the CCS who met in an ordinary
congregation on 02 March unanimously voted in favor of the cause of the Servant of God
Bishop Ramón del Hoyo López of Jaén (Spain) announced that the Vatican
Secretariat of State has favorably accepted his request to
establish the date for the beatification of the Venerable
On 03 February, the archdiocese of Madrid closed the diocesan inquiry on
the presumed martyrdom of the Servants of God
On 26 February, Archbishop Stanislav Zvolenský of Bratislava (Slovakia) will
formally open the diocesan inquiry on the presumed martyrdom of the
Servant of God
