Vatican News reported that Pope Francis has authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to proceed with the canonization of a new religious saint and decrees about the causes of a number of other religious.
The Congregation will soon canonize Margaret of Città del Castello, a third order Dominican (~1287-1320). According to a biography by the Nashville Dominican sisters, Margaret was born physically ugly, hunchbacked, and blind. Her parents, ashamed of her as well as wishing for a son, hid her away and eventually abandoned her altogether at the age of 16. Margaret found her way to a Dominican convent, where she helped to care for the sick and dying and eventually became a third order Dominican. She was noted for her simple cheerfulness and conviction that God loves each individual deeply.
Margaret will be canonized through the process of “equipollent” canonization, where vernation of a saint is given approval without the normal process followed by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. “Equipollent” canonization can be used for cases where there is no reasonable way to establish all the facts of a person’s cause but they have a longstanding cult.
In addition to Margaret, a number of other religious’ causes proceeded with the decree. Redemptorists Vicente Nicasio Renuncio Toribio and 11 companions were declared martyrs. They were killed during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Venerable Emanuele Stablum, of the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Conception, was a physician who sheltered around 100 people from the Nazis in the Dermopathic Institute where he worked.
Photo: Wikipedia
