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An Italian man was crushed to death on Thursday by a giant crucifix dedicated to the late Pope John Paul II, just days before the Polish pontiff will be made a saint in a ceremony at the Vatican. In a bizarre coincidence, the 21-year-old man was reported to have been living in a street named after Pope John XXIII – who will also be canonised in the ceremony on Sunday, in an event that is unprecedented in the 2,000 year history of the Catholic Church. The man, named as Marco Gusmini, was posing for a photograph with a group of...

President Barack Obama has announced the names of the members of the presidential delegation to the April 27 Mass of canonization of Blessed John XXIII and Blessed John Paul II. John Podesta, current Counselor to the President and White House Chief of Staff under President Bill Clinton, will lead the delegation. The other members of the delegation are Rep. Xavier Becerra, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, and Katie Beirne Fallon, Assistant to the President and Director of Legislative Affairs. According to Vogue, Fallon was a leading strategist in the effort to garner political support for the HHS mandate. Additional...

Two of the great figures of the Second Vatican Council will be canonized on the same day next year. The Vatican announced that they will add Popes John Paul II and John XXIII to the list of saints on April 27th next year. That falls on Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast day instituted by John Paul II: Two of the most-loved leaders of the Catholic Church, Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, will be raised to sainthood together in a joint canonization ceremony — the first such ceremony in the church’s history.At a consistory in the Vatican, Pope...

Q: How is it that the martyr Philomena used to be a saint, but isn’t any more? I don’t understand how the Church can canonize a saint and then change its mind… –Mary A: Philomena is not, and has never been a saint. Many Catholics erroneously believe that Philomena used to be a saint, and was somehow “decanonized” by Pope John XXIII in 1961. In fact, the action taken that year by the Congregation of Rites—which back then had jurisdiction over matters pertaining to the canonization of saints—actually clarified and made more consistent the canonical status of the person commonly...

Q: How many miracles are required before somebody can be canonized a saint? I thought that you needed three. But now the Pope has announced that John Paul II will be canonized after only two miracles, and John XXIII with (I believe) even less than that. Did the rules get changed at some point? Is this even a canon-law question? –Sylvie A: Sylvie is of course referring to the Vatican’s July 5 announcement that a miracle has been attributed to the intercession of Blessed John Paul II, clearing the way for his canonization. The same decree also indicates that Pope...

The Saints That Marriage Needs Today! by Phil Kosloski on July 17, 2013On May 21st the tribunal in Valencia completed a pivotal stage in the process of canonization for Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin. This couple, the parents of the “greatest Saint of modern times” Therese of Lisieux, needs one more miracle to confirm their union with their daughter in the company of canonized Saints. That miracle appears to have already taken place. A baby girl, doomed to die on account of numerous maladies, was miraculously healed through their intercession in 2008 in Valencia.Inspired and assisted by local Carmelite...

Pope John Paul II Visits United Nations. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider. Vatican City, Jun 19, 2013 / 12:19 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Theologians at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints have approved a second miracle granted through the intercession of Blessed John Paul II, moving him closer to being declared a saint. “The proclamation of his sainthood needs only the approval of the commission of cardinals and bishops and the final signature of Pope Francis,” Italian news agency ANSA reported June 18. Before Blessed John Paul II can be canonized, the Congregation must formally approve the miracle and present...

Raymond Ibrahim, a scholar of Islam and Islamic history who has a particular focus on Muslim persecution of Christians, has on his website - for which I also write - a new article, Islamic Forced Conversions — Past and Present, highlighting the astonishing similarities of past atrocities, which many people in the West believe to have been consigned to distant history (belief largely due to the mainstream media's "carpet non-coverage" and total neglect of these everyday slaughters, massacres, beheadings, torture and discrimination), to current ones. His piece was inspired by last Sunday’s canonization by Pope Francis I of the 813...

Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd after the canonization Mass, Oct. 21, 2012. Credit: Marianne Medlin and Emily Hazelbach/CNA. Vatican City, Oct 21, 2012 / 09:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI has canonized seven new saints and prayed that their intercession may “strengthen and sustain” the Church “in her mission to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world.” The Pope addressed a crowd of tens of thousands on a sunny, Oct. 21 Mass at St. Peter's Square, raising seven men and women to the altars. Those included Jacques Berthieu, Pedro Calungsod, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Marìa Carmen Sallés...

An 11-year-old boy's survival from a near-fatal battle with a flesh-eating bacteria has been declared a miracle by the Vatican. Jake Finkbonner, of Ferndale, Washington, made a stunning recovery from a tissue-destroying disease that gnawed away at his young face and nearly took his life in 2006. Pope Benedict XVI attributed the miracle attribute to The Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, clearing the way for the 17th century Mohawk-Algonquin woman to become the first American-Indian saint. She could be canonised as early as February, becoming America's first indigenous saint. Mrs Finkbonner told MSNBC her son, meanwhile, is 'doing fantastic' and is playing...

Pope Benedict XVI, seated at right, watches the Polish-produced documentary, "John Paul II: I Kept Looking For You," at the Vatican April 9. After watching the film about his predecessor, Pope Benedict said "John Paul II was a great contemplative and a great apostle." (CNS/L'Osservatore Romano) By Cindy WoodenCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The slight differences between a beatification and a canonization are easy to miss, especially when one pope beatifies another pope. Just three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI was to beatify Pope John Paul II, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments issued a...

On April 2, 2005 at 9:37 p.m. the Venerable Pope John Paul II died. In April of 2009 his beloved successor, Pope Benedict XVI, told Pilgrims gathered in Rome "With you, I pray for the gift of beatification". That prayer has been answered. Friday, January 14, 2011 the Holy See released the "Decree for the Beatification of the Servant of God John Paul II". ...The choice of the Feast of Divine Mercy, May 1, 2011 is not accidental. He had a deep devotion to his fellow Pole Sr. Faustina Kowalska and to the Divine Mercy devotion identified with her. ...Pope...

Venerable Pope John Paul II Vatican City, Jan 12, 2011 / 02:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Vatican officials have concluded that a miraculous healing credited to the intercession of Pope John Paul II is authentic. The decision clears the way for the Church to declare the late Pope “blessed,” the final stage on the road to sainthood. The Pope’s beatification could take place as early as April 2, the sixth anniversary of his death, according to veteran Vatican analyst Andrea Tornielli, who broke the news in the Jan. 12 edition of the Italian newspaper, Il Giornale. Tornielli reported that cardinals...

Father Claude Grou stands in front of a statue of Brother Andre at St. Joseph's Oratory. The humble hero would have been comfortable with canonization, the oratory rector argues, "if this can help people to love St. Joseph better, if this can help people come closer to God." Before recognizing a saint, the Catholic church says it thoroughly investigates the subject to ensure he or she led a remarkable and exemplary Christian life. The subject must also have at least two miracles recognized as taking place through his or her intercession. The Vatican says it must confirm that "the act...

Vatican City, Jul 5, 2010 / 01:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II and the episcopal conferences of the United Kingdom to visit in September, according to the spokesman of the Holy See. While the Pope's stop in the house of parliament has been confirmed, the most anticipated moment of the apostolic visit will take place on its final day.The Holy See's spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, officially announced the trip in a Monday statement from the press office. This confirms what Pope Benedict had already told the bishops of England and Wales...

The controversy over Pope Pius XII's actions during World War II was recently reignited when... Riccardo Pacifici, president of Rome's Jewish community, told [Pope Benedict] : "The silence of Pius XII before the Shoah still hurts because something should have been done." [snip] To what extent, if any, does the evidence back up these allegations, which have been repeated since the early 1960s? On April 4, 1933, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the Vatican secretary of state, instructed the papal nuncio in Germany to see what he could do to oppose the Nazis. On behalf of Pope Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli drafted...

CANONIZATION OF BLESSED DAMIAN DE VEUSTER, JEANNE JUGAN AND OTHERS - LIVE (2 1/2 hr) and Mary of The Cross (Jeanne) Jugan. Sun 10/11/09 4:00 AM ET / 1 AM PT Sun 10/11/09 12:00 PM ET / 9 AM PT

Peggy Chun's portrait of Blessed Father Damien Rome, Italy, Oct 9, 2009 / 06:24 am (CNA).- As the October 11 canonization of the Fr. Damien de Veuster approaches, an art teacher is leading a small group from Hawaii to Rome to present Pope Benedict XVI with a portrait of the saint painted by an artist paralyzed by Lou Gehrig’s Disease, also known as ALS.Fr. Damien, a hero to Hawaiians, ministered to a major leper colony on Molokai where he contracted and eventually succumbed to leprosy in the late nineteenth century.The late artist Peggy Chun had created the artwork with...

On April 26 in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict XVI will canonize a Portuguese national hero who toward the end of his life became a Carmelite monk and served the poor, Nuno de Santa Maria Àlvares Pereira, O. Carm. (1360-1431), the Condestável ("Constable," meaning General) known in Portugal as "the Father of the Nation.”" Almost a century ago, Pope Benedict XV beatified Nuno (January 23, 1918), and proposed him as a model for the Catholic soldiers then engaged in combat during World War 1. So one Pope Benedict, the 15th, beatified Nuno, and a second, Benedict XVI, will canonize him....

ROME, OCT. 10, 2008 (Zenit.org).- As Christians in India continue to face persecution for their faith, they will have a new advocate in the figure of soon-to-be St. Alfonsa of the Immaculate Conception.Blessed Alfonsa (born Anna Muttathupadathu) is one of four people to be canonized by Benedict XVI this Sunday. The other three are Maria Bernarda Butler, from Switzerland; Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán from Ecuador; and Father Gaetano Errico from Italy.Blessed Alfonsa will be the first woman from India to be canonized. She was a religious of the Poor Clares.Anna Muttathupadathu was born in the Indian state of Kerala...