Pope Benedict XVI canonizes 4 new saints By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI gave Catholics four news saints Sunday, bestowing the honor on a 19th century nun who struggled in the American frontier, a bishop who tended to the wounded during the Mexican Revolution and two Italian clergy who worked with the deaf. French-born Mother Theodore Guerin, known for her determination, established a college for women in Indiana the 1800s. She endured harsh conditions on the American frontier and resisted the objections of a local bishop in pursuing her dream of establishing Catholic education for pioneers. Among those at the ceremony on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica were ailing Chicago Cardinal Francis George and five Indiana churchmen. George, who is recovering from cancer surgery, flew to Rome with hundreds of alumnae, trustees and students of St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana. The pope also elevated to sainthood Bishop Rafael Guizar Valencia, a missionary who risked his life to tend to the wounded during the Mexican Revolution. Guizar Valencia, who died in 1938, was a great uncle of the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ order of priest whom the Vatican restricted from public ministry this year amid allegations Degollado sexually abused seminarians. "We register them in the roll call of the saints and we establish that in all the Church they will be devotedly honored among the saints," Benedict said as he read the canonization ritual in Latin. Also joining the ranks of sainthood was Italian Rev. Filippo Smaldone who pioneered education for the deaf and founded an order of nuns, the Congregation of the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Hearts. The order has convents in Brazil, Moldavia, Paraguay and Rwanda. Smaldone died in 1923. The other Italian, Rosa Venerini, was also a social pioneer, advocating education for young girls in Italy. Veneri, who died in 1728, founded the Congregation of the Holy Venerini Teachers order of nuns and pushed to establish the first public schools for girls in Italy. It was Benedict's first canonization ceremony in nearly a year. His predecessor, John Paul II, led several canonization and beatification ceremonies yearly, but Benedict has departed from that practice. Ceremonies for beatification, the last formal step before sainthood, are now held in the country where the faithful lived or worked, and the services are led by local prelates. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061015/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_new_saints The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. -- Chinese proverb _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org