Canonization Archives

‘Kid judge’ killed by mafia could follow pope’s new path to sainthood

Pope Francis’s June legal act created a new path to sainthood for those who made an “offer of life,” which may open up the door for the canonization of several Italian judges who were killed by the mafia. Among them is Rosario Livatino, the ‘kid judge’, who was brutally murdered for trying to uncover mafia dealings.

‘Father Stan’s Our Man’: Okla. farm town honors hometown hero on path to sainthood

A crowd of nearly 400 gathered in a small church in Oklahoma to pay tribute to a hometown hero who could become a saint. The Reverend Stanley Francis Rother was killed in Guatemala by three masked assassins in 1981 because he had sided with local Indians against the government.

Christian unity pioneer could be new American saint

Now that the diocesan phase of the sainthood cause of Father Paul Wattson is closed and all the documentation has been shipped off to Rome, the ball’s in the court of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Born in 1863, Wattson was a convert from Episcopalianism and went on to be an ecumenical pioneer, helping develop the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

A personal look at Fatima’s saintly Sister Lucia
- Catholic News Agency, Global Church, Pope in Fatima
- May 10, 2017
Pope Francis will be visiting the Fatima shrine in Portugal May 12-13 where he will declare Jacinta and Francisco Marto saints. The former Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, who opened the cause for the canonization of their cousin, Lucia dos Santos, talks about why she was a saintly yet practical woman.
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Child saints have much to teach the Church on suffering, sacrifice
- Interviews, Pope in Fatima
- May 10, 2017
The canonization of Fatima visionaries Jacinta and Francisco Marto will put the spotlight on the heroic holiness possible in children. Austin Ruse hopes it will “open the floodgates” in allowing other saintly children to be canonized. He highlights three children of this generation who lived lives of heroic virtue in his new book ‘Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ.’
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Before proclaiming martyrs, the waiting game is needed
- Commentary, Vatican
- May 6, 2017
Many of those killed in attacks targeting Christians were simply going about their daily affairs when the bomb went off, or the mob arrived. Some of them professed their faith, or at least did not deny it, before death, while others died without even knowing what was happening to them. Before the Church proclaims them all martyrs, the Church needs time to permit a fuller picture of the candidate to emerge. Waiving the mandatory five-year waiting period before opening a cause for canonization makes it harder to do that.
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