A Chilean Jesuit who worked with the poor, two prelates beatified by Pope John Paul II during his 2001 visit to Ukraine and two Italians – one a Capuchin brother, the other a founder of a religious order — were being added to the list of the Roman Catholic Church’s saints.
"Today, I have the joy to preside for the first time over a canonization rite,’’ Benedict said in an opening prayer to thousands of people gathered in the fog-shrouded piazza, many of them waving Chilean flags.
The crowd applauded as he read out each of the names, standing on a platform under massive portraits of each of the five men that hung from St. Peter’s Basilica.
During his 26-year pontificate, John Paul canonized 482 people and beatified 1,338 — more than all his predecessors over the past 500 years combined.
Benedict is known to have approved the start of only one new cause since his April 19 election: that of John Paul himself. The cases of the five men being canonized Sunday began long before he became pope.
While it’s too soon to say whether Benedict will keep up John Paul’s unprecedented pace in naming role models for the Catholic faithful, the new Pope has changed John Paul’s practice and is presiding only over saint-making masses. He has designated cardinals to celebrate Masses to beatify people.
Beatification is the last step before possible sainthood, and allows for local veneration. Canonization, on the other hand, is an infallible declaration by the Pope that a person who was virtuous to a heroic degree in life is now in heaven, and worthy of honor and veneration by all the faithful.
Among the five being canonized Sunday is the Rev. Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, a Chilean Jesuit who lived from 1901 to 1952 and is known for his work with the poor, as well as the young.
Another is Archbishop Josef Bilczewski, the archbishop of Lviv, Ukraine, who was greatly admired by Catholics, Orthodox, and Jews alike during World War I. The archbishop’s life spanned the time during which Lviv was under Polish control, after which it reverted back to Ukraine.
John Paul beatified Bilczewski during his 2001 visit to Ukraine, and during the same Mass, also bestowed the honor on another Lviv prelate, the Rev. Zygmunt Gorazdowski, who founded the Congregation for the Sisters of St. Joseph to care for the sick and poor.
Italians Felice da Nicosia, a lay Capuchin who lived in the 1700s, and the Rev. Gaetano Cantanoso, who founded the Veronican Sisters of the Holy Face in 1934, round out the list.
Sunday’s Mass also officially closed the threeweek Synod of Bishops, the meeting of about 250 of the world’s bishops to discuss pressing issues such as the priest shortage. The bishops Saturday approved a set of 50 recommendations for Benedict to consider in a future document.
Benedict announced last May 13 that he was putting John Paul on the fast track for possible sainthood, waiving the traditional five-year waiting period before a beatification cause can begin.
The Vatican must certify a miracle attributed to John Paul’s intercession occurred after his April 2 death before he can be beatified. Another miracle that occurred after his beatification is needed for him to be declared a saint.
Last weekend, John Paul’s longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, said he was aware of "various cases" of unexplainable miraculous cures that have occurred in the past six months.
"The most impressive case occurred in a convent in France," he told the Avvenire daily of the Italian bishops’ conference. "A nun who was seriously ill found herself in a desperate situation. The other sisters gathered for many hours in prayer, asking for the intercession of John Paul II. Well, four days later, the nun was completely cured, the doctors couldn’t find any trace of her terrible illness."
