Pope Francis extends mandate of special delegate to Knights of Malta

Vatican City, Jul 19, 2018 / 10:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Bl. Nunzio Sulprizio, who died at the age of 19 from bone cancer, will be declared a saint Oct. 14 during the Synod of Bishops on young people, faith, and vocational discernment, Pope Francis anno… […]

Pope Benedict XVI arrives in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican for the Oct. 21, 2012, canonization ceremony for Jacques Berthieu, Pedro Calungsod, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Maria Carmen Salles y Barangueras, Marianne Cope, Caterina (Kateri) Tekakwitha, and Anna Schaffer. / Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

During his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI beatified 870 people and canonized a total of 45 saints. Though his papacy was relatively short, spanning from 2005 to 2013, the 45 people whom he declared saints are models of faith and holiness, celebrated by Catholics all over the world.

Here are seven of the best-known saints Pope Benedict XVI canonized:

St. Kateri Tekakwitha

St. Kateri Tekakwitha, or “Lily of the Mohawks,” was the first Native American saint to be canonized. Born in what is today New York state, she was the daughter of a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother. She was baptized at age 21 and fled persecution to St. Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal, Canada, joining a community of Native American women who had also converted to Christianity. She is remembered for her suffering, devout faith, courage, and her purity. St. Kateri died on April 17, 1680, at age 24.

She was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. He said: “Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life despite the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are.”

St. Hildegard of Bingen

St. Hildegard of Bingen was an abbess, artist, author, composer, mystic, pharmacist, poet, preacher, and theologian from Germany. Born in 1098, in her late teens she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of Saint Disibodenberg. From the age of 3, she experienced visions of God and was asked by her confessor to write them down in what became the influential illustrated book “Scivias.” She founded two monasteries and was a prolific writer of poetry, theology, and sacred music. She died on Sept. 17, 1179.

St. Hildegard was canonized on May 10, 2012, and declared a Doctor of the Church by Benedict XVI on Oct. 7, 2012. He said: “In Hildegard are expressed the most noble values of womanhood: hence the presence of women in the Church and in society is also illumined by her presence, both from the perspective of scientific research and that of pastoral activity.”

St. Damien of Molokai

Joseph de Veuster, later to become St. Damien of Molokai, was born in 1840 in rural Belgium. At the age of 13, he was forced to leave school to work on a farm but later decided to pursue a religious vocation with the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. As a priest, he served victims of leprosy quarantined on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. He eventually contracted the disease, losing his eyesight, speech, and mobility. St. Damien died of leprosy on April 15, 1889. Benedict XVI said of St. Damien, whom he canonized on Oct. 11, 2009: “Following in St. Paul’s footsteps, St. Damien prompts us to choose the good warfare, not the kind that brings division, but the kind that gathers people together. He invites us to open our eyes to the forms of leprosy that disfigure the humanity of our brethren and still today call for the charity of our presence as servants, beyond that of our generosity.”

St. Marianne Cope

St. Marianne Cope was born in Germany in 1838 and entered religious life with the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in Syracuse, New York, in 1862. Mother Marianne served as an educator and opened two of central New York’s first hospitals. She was sent to Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai in Hawaii at age 45 to care for leprosy patients and established an education and health care system for them in the years she was there.

Benedict XVI canonized St. Marianne Cope on Oct. 21, 2012. Of her legacy, he said: “At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage, and enthusiasm. She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved St. Francis.”

St. Jeanne Jugan

St. Jeanne Jugan was born on Oct. 25, 1792, during the French Revolution. At age 25, she joined the Third Order of St. John Eudes, a religious association for laypersons. After some time serving as a nurse caring for elderly women, she acquired an unused convent building that would hold 40 people and established the Little Sisters of the Poor. At the time of her death on Aug. 29, 1879, 2,400 members were serving internationally.

At St. Jeanne Jugan’s canonization on Oct. 11, 2009, Benedict said: “Jeanne lived the mystery of love, peacefully accepting obscurity and self-emptying until her death. Her charism is ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families.”

St. Pedro Calungsod

St. Pedro Calungsod was born in 1654 in the Philippines. In 1668, at the age of 14, he was among the young catechists chosen to accompany Spanish Jesuit missionaries — among them Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores — to the Marianas Islands to spread the Catholic faith. St. Pedro was responsible for converting many people, especially through the sacrament of baptism. On April 2, 1672, he was killed, along with San Vitores, while they were conducting a baptism. He is now recognized as a martyr.

He was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012. Of St. Pedro’s hardships, while visiting the Marianas Islands, Benedict said: “Pedro, however, displayed deep faith and charity and continued to catechize his many converts, giving witness to Christ by a life of purity and dedication to the Gospel. Uppermost was his desire to win souls for Christ, and this made him resolute in accepting martyrdom.”

St. Alphonsa

St. Alphonsa was born in Kerala, India, on Aug. 19, 1910. As a young woman, she rejected all suitors who came her way, as she was determined to enter religious life. In 1923, she suffered an accident that left her burned, disabled, and partially disfigured. She joined the Franciscan Clarist Congregation, and until her death suffered from physical ailments and problems associated with her disability. In her love for God, she embraced her sufferings until her death on July 28, 1946.

St. Alphonsa was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 12, 2008. She is the first Indian woman to become a saint. In a Vatican statement released on the day of her canonization, she is described as “a victim for the love of the Lord, happy until the final moment and with a smile of innocence always on her lips.”

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Vatican City, Aug 7, 2017 / 11:51 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday morning Pope Francis descended to the grotto beneath St Peter’s Basilica, where many past Popes are buried, to pray at the tomb of Bl. Paul VI.

According to a Vatican communique, the Pope spent about half an hour in “a moment of recollection” and prayer before the tomb Aug. 6, the 39th anniversary of the late Roman Pontiff’s 1978 death.

Best known for his encyclical Humanae vitae, on the regulation of birth, and his role in the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI was beatified by Pope Francis in 2014.

Not only has Francis acknowledged the important contribution of Bl. Paul VI to the universal Church, he has also followed closely in the late Roman Pontiff’s steps, particularly in his travels abroad, going to several of the places where his predecessor had become the first Pope ever to step foot.

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of Bl. Paul VI’s encyclicals Populorum Progressio, on the development of peoples, and Sacerdotalis caelibatus, on the celibacy of the priest. Populorum Progressio was a key point of reference in Pope Francis’ establishment this year of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

Bl. Paul VI was born Giovanni Montini in 1897 in the town of Concesio in the Lombardy region of Italy. Ordained a priest in 1920 and consecrated as a bishop in 1954, he was appointed to the college of cardinals in 1958.

At the age of 66 he was elected Bishop of Rome and chose the name Paul VI, in reference to the missionary spirit of the Apostle Paul.

He re-convoked the Second Vatican Council, which had automatically closed with the death of his predecessor, St. John XXIII, and improved ecumenical relations with the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

In a historic move in December 1965, Bl. Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople mutually lifted the excommunications that had been leveled against the leaders of both Churches in 1054.

Montini’s cause for canonization was opened in 1993. In December 2012, Benedict XVI recognized the heroic virtue of Paul VI, giving him the title Venerable. In 2014, the Vatican approved a miracle attributed to his intercession, allowing for his beatification.

In his Oct. 19, 2014 homily for the beatification, Francis hailed Paul VI as “the great helmsman of the [Second Vatican] Council.”

He cited Bl. Paul VI’s words at the closing of Vatican II’s final session: “Perhaps the Lord has called me and preserved me for this service not because I am particularly fit for it, or so that I can govern and rescue the Church from her present difficulties, but so that I can suffer something for the Church, and in that way it will be clear that he, and no other, is her guide and saviour.”

“In this humility,” Pope Francis continued, “the grandeur of Blessed Paul VI shines forth: before the advent of a secularized and hostile society, he could hold fast, with farsightedness and wisdom – and at times alone – to the helm of the barque of Peter, while never losing his joy and his trust in the Lord.”

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