IMAGE: CNS photo/Leonardo Munoz, EPA
By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis will beatify a priest and
a bishop martyred in Colombia when he visits the country in September, a
Vatican spokesman said.
In an email to Catholic News Service July 7, Vatican
spokesman Greg Burke confirmed that Pope Francis will beatify Bishop Jesus
Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve of Arauca and Father Pedro Ramirez Ramos. The
beatification Mass will be at Catama field in Villavicencio Sept. 8, Burke
said.
At a meeting July 7 with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of
the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, the pope signed decrees acknowledging the
martyrdom of Bishop Jaramillo, who was murdered by Colombian Marxist guerrillas
in 1989.
The Colombian bishop, along with a local priest, was
kidnapped by members of the National Liberation Army, known by the Spanish
acronym ELN, because of his criticism of the rebel group’s violent actions.
Although his companion was freed, Bishop Jaramillo was shot
twice in the head. His body was found by local peasants near the Venezuelan
border.
The pope also recognized the martyrdom of Father Ramirez, known
as “the martyr of Armero,” who was killed at the start of the
Colombian civil war in 1948.
Pope
Francis also recognized a miracle attributed to Anna Chrzanowska, a Polish
laywoman who was an Oblate with the Ursuline Sisters of St. Benedict, clearing
the way for her beatification.
In
causes just beginning their way toward sainthood, the pope signed decrees
recognizing the heroic virtues of two men and three women, including:
— Archbishop Ismael Perdomo of
Bogota, Colombia, who died in 1950.
— Louis Kosiba, a Polish laymen
and professed member of the Order of Friars Minor, who died in 1939.
— Sister Paola de Jesus Gil Cano,
a Spanish nun and founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate
Conception. She died in 1913.
— Sister Maria Elisabetta Mazza,
an Italian nun and founder of the Congregation of the Little Apostles of the
Christian School.
— Sister Maria Crocifissa dell’Amore
Divino, an Italian nun and founder of the Congregation of the Apostles of the
Sacred Heart.
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