IMAGE: CNS photo/Piyal Adhikary, EPA
By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope
Francis will preside over a consistory to approve the canonization of five men
and women, including Blessed Teresa of Kolkata, the Vatican announced.
The March 15 consistory will also
determine the approval of canonization of Argentine “gaucho priest,” Blessed Jose Gabriel del Rosario
Brochero and Blessed Jose Sanchez del Rio, a 14-year-old Mexican boy
martyred for refusing to renounce his faith during the Cristero War of the
1920s, the Vatican said March 7.
The meeting of cardinals and promoters of the sainthood causes, also known
as an “ordinary public consistory,” formally ends the process of approving a new saint.
Although the
canonization dates are often announced at the consistory, it is widely believed Blessed Teresa’s
canonization will take place Sept. 4. That
date celebrates the Jubilee of Workers and Volunteers of Mercy and comes the
day before the 19th anniversary of her death, Sept. 5, 1997.
On Dec. 17, Pope Francis approved a second
miracle attributed to Blessed Teresa’s intercession. That miracle involved the
healing of a now 42-year-old mechanical engineer in Santos, Brazil, who was in a
coma after being diagnosed with a viral brain infection that resulted in
multiple brain abscesses.
The pope also will announce
the canonization dates of Blessed
Stanislaus Papczynski of Poland, founder of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, and
Blessed Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad, a Swedish Lutheran convert who
established a branch of the Bridgettine order in Sweden.
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