Pope Francis recognizes miracle attributed to St. Teresa of Ávila’s spiritual daughter

Courtney Mares   By Courtney Mares for CNA

December 14, 2023 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 1 Print

 

Ana de Lobera y Torres (1545-1621), better known by her religious name Sister Ana de Jesús, helped expand the Discalced Carmelites to France and Belgium. Painting in the monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, Brussels, ca. 1650. / Credit: AnonymousUnknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Dec 14, 2023 / 10:55 am (CNA).

More than 400 years after her death, Pope Francis has recognized a miracle attributed to Carmelite Sister Ana de Jesús, a spiritual daughter of St. Teresa of Ávila and a friend to St. John of the Cross.

In a decree signed on Dec. 14, Pope Francis authorized the beatification of Ana de Lobera y Torres (1545-1621), better known by her religious name Sister Ana de Jesús, who helped to expand the Discalced Carmelites to France and Belgium.

Ana was orphaned at the age of 9 and in 1569 in the city of Toledo was introduced to St. Teresa, who saw Ana’s virtues and invited her to join the Carmelites. Ana and Teresa went on to form a strong bond and even shared a cell in the Salamanca monastery while Teresa was writing “The Book of the Foundations.”

After Teresa’s death, Ana collected together all her literary works and sent them to a friar to be published. She continued Teresa’s legacy by founding new monasteries in France in Paris, Pontoise, and Dijon, and in Brussels.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux later wrote in her spiritual autobiography “Story of a Soul” that Ana de Jesús had appeared to her in a dream and let her know that she would soon be able to go to heaven: “Without the least hesitation, I recognized Venerable Anne of Jesus, foundress of the Carmel in France. Her face was beautiful but with an immaterial beauty.”

St. John of the Cross wrote the opening commentary on his “Spiritual Canticle” at Sister Ana’s request and entrusted the document to her while he was imprisoned in Toledo.

Pope Francis advanced Ana’s cause for beatification on the feast of St. John of the Cross.

The pope also recognized a miracle attributed to a Mexican priest, Father Moisés Lira Serafín (1893-1950), whose intercession healed an unborn child of fetal hydrops in 2004, according to the Vatican.

Lira served as a priest amid the religious persecution during Mexico’s Cristero War. He expanded his clandestine apostolate in 1926 by forming groups of catechists to encourage young people in their faith. Lira went on to found the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity of Mary Immaculate in 1934.

In Thursday’s decree, Pope Francis recognized the martyrdom of five priests and one seminarian.

Father Luigi Carrara, Father Giovanni Didonè, and Father Vittorio Faccin were Xaverian missionary priests from Italy serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo who were martyred by anti-religious guerrillas in the Kwilu Rebellion in 1964. Father Albert Joubert, a local diocesan priest born to a French father and African mother, was killed along with them.

The pope also approved the martyrdom of Ján Havlík, a Slovak seminarian who was arrested and tortured by the communist government and sentenced to 10 years of forced labor in a uranium mine, where he carried out a clandestine apostolate among the prisoners until his health deteriorated due to the harsh working conditions leading to his death in 1965.

The martyrdom of Father Giuseppe Rossi, an Italian diocesan priest killed by Fascist soldiers on Feb. 26, 1945, was also recognized in the decree.

With the papal approval of their upcoming beatifications, Sister Anna of Jesus, Father Moisés Lira Serafín, Father Luigi Carrara, Father Giovanni Didonè, Father Vittorio Faccin, Father Albert Joubert, Father Giuseppe Rossi, and Ján Havlík are each one step away from being canonized as saints, which will require a miracle attributed to their intercession.

Three 20th-century Catholics were also declared Venerable in the decree. Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtue of a father of five from Guatemala named Ernesto Guglielmo Cofiño Ubico (1899–1991) as well as Father Alberto Beretta (1916–2001), an Italian Capuchin priest and physician who served as a missionary in Brazil for 33 years, and Francesca Lancellotti (1917–2008), an Italian laywoman known for her spiritual gifts.

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Petition to preserve religious liberty in Chile launched

February 23, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Feb 23, 2021 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- Alliance Defending Freedom International has launched a petition addressed to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule in favor of religious freedom in Chile.

The ruling will have ramifications for all member states of the Organization of American States.

The petition campaign addresses the case of Sandra Pavez, a lesbian and former nun. The Diocese of San Bernardo did not renew her certificate of suitability to continue teaching religion classes in 2007 because Pavez chose to cohabit with her female partner and go public with the relationship.

Bishop Juan Ignacio González Errazuriz of San Bernardo had informed Pavez that if she continued in that relationship “he would be obliged to revoke her certificate of suitability, for not giving ‘the witness of a Christian life’, which the Catholic Church expects from its teachers,” the campaign explains.

Religion classes in Chile are governed by Decree 924 of 1983, issued by the country’s Ministry of Education, which requires all schools to offer optional religion classes in accordance with the student’s religion. The decree also states that the teacher must have a certificate of suitability issued by “the corresponding religious authority,” in this case the Bishop of San Bernardo. The decree also empowers that authority to revoke the certificate of suitability, which Bishop González did.

Consequently, Pavez “could not continue teaching that specific class.”

The revocation of the certificate of suitability to teach Catholic religion classes entailed “no negative judgement about the professional competence of Pavez, nor was her right to continue teaching other subjects questioned, even in the same establishment.”

“This is in fact what happened, without Pavez losing even for a moment the source of her livelihood, nor was she removed from the school community,” the campaign notes.

Pavez sued the Catholic Church for discrimination and filed for an injunction with the San Miguel Court of Appeals. The court denied the injunction, ruling that the revocation was neither illegal nor arbitrary, and Chile’s Supreme Court confirmed the appeal court’s decision.

In 2008, the teacher took her case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights based in Washington, D.C, “which agreed with her, stating that she has the right to teach Catholic religion classes even against the objection of her church and that the faith communities cannot require teachers’ conduct to be faithful to their beliefs, not even in private schools.”

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, located in Costa Rica, now has the case, with a decision forthcoming some time in 2021.

Both the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court are organs of the OAS to protect human rights in the hemisphere.

Those signing the petition hope that the court will consider “all the interests and rights involved, since we know that what it decides in this case may create ramifications that will extend to the exercise and enjoyment of our rights in the states we live in,” the campaign states.

ADF International warns the decision will determine whether religious schools “will be able to ensure that their religious educators fulfill their obligation of fidelity … that they voluntarily profess.”

In addition, the decision will also determine “whether states will respect the right of parents to have their children receive a religious education that is consistent with their convictions.”

“International human rights law recognizes as a central element in the teaching of religion – which is a manifestation of freedom of religion – the freedom of each religious community to choose who will teach it on their behalf.”

Likewise, “human rights treaties also recognize for us, parents, the freedom and right to guarantee that our children receive a moral and religious education that is in accordance with our convictions,” the campaign adds.

“By virtue of our freedom of religion, we have an expressly recognized and protected right to spread our faith, starting with ensuring that it will be transmitted to our children.”

Signers of the petition consider the “consistency of life” of those who teach religion to be “absolutely central.”


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