A canonization ceremony took place on Sunday at the Vatican in the presence of thousands of faithful.
Le Monde with AFP
Pope Francis proclaimed “Saintes” Sunday, May 15, ten figures of the Catholic Church in front of thousands of faithful from around the world gathered on Saint-Pierre square in Rome. Their portraits were hung on the facade of the largest basilica in the world.
At the rank of official delegations, the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, was held near the Italian president Sergio Mattarella. Prime Minister Jean Castex was initially expected at the ceremony but Emmanuel Macron’s trip to the United Arab Emirates, to pay tribute to the dead president Khalifa ben Zayed Al Nahyane, finally forced him to stay in France.
Unlike these last days, Pope Francis, 85, who suffers from knee pain, did not appear in a wheelchair before chairing this mass, alongside around fifty cardinals and 300 priests and bishops.
The canonization, a step allowing to become “saint” in the Catholic Church, succeeding the beatification, requires three conditions: being died for at least five years, having led an exemplary Christian life and having accomplished at least two miracles.
The first saint of Uruguay and the first Indian layman
Among these ten “canonized” are three French: the hermit Charles de Foucault, dead murdered in 1916 in Tamanrasset, in the Algerian desert south, as well as the French religious Marie Rivier (1768-1838) and César de Bus ( 1544-1607).
Five other new “saints” are Italian: the priests Luigi Maria Palazzolo and Giustino Maria Russolillo, the Italian nuns Maria Domenica Mantovani and Maria di Ges Gesù Santocanal and the Italo-Uruguayenne Maria Francesca Rubatto, who becomes the first saint ‘Uruguay.
The other two canonies are the Dutch priest and journalist Titus Brandsma, known for his commitment against Nazi propaganda during the Second World War, and the martyr Devasahayam (Lazare) Pillai (1712-1752), a Hindu converted to Christianity, The first Indian secular to become “saint”, according to the Vatican.