Pope Francis opens the way to new saints

“The pope spent a calm night and rests,” announced the Vatican, during his last press point this Wednesday, February 26. Hospitalized since February 14 at the Gemelli Hospital (Rome), the state of health of the Holy Father remains worrying but “improves slightly”. He got back to work.

During a hearing granted Monday, February 24, to the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Mgr Edgar Peña Parra, respectively number 2 and number 3 of the Holy See, Pope Francis authorized the canonization of two Blessed. Thus, the church will soon have two new saints: the Venezuelan doctor Cisneros and the Italian layman Bartolo Longo, the “apostle of the rosary”.

Venezuelan doctor José Cisneros

José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros was born on October 26, 1864 in Isnotú, in the Andean state of Trujillo and died in 1919 in Caracas following a car accident at the age of 54. He graduated in medicine in Caracas and deepens his studies in Paris, Berlin, Madrid, New York.

For this scientist, medicine is a mission, especially for the poorest. He distinguished himself by treating the patients for free during the Spanish fever epidemic. On June 29, 1919, by going to the pharmacy to buy medication from an elderly woman, he was crushed by a car.

Led to the hospital, he receives the anointing from the patients. He dies by murmuring these words: “Oh, Blessed Virgin! ». The beatification decree was signed by Pope Francis in June 2020, in the wake of recognition of a miracle in 2017.

Bartolo Longo, the “Rosary Apostle”

Bartolo Longo, faithful secular, was born in Latiano (Italy) on February 10, 1841. Anticlerical lawyer and satanic priest, he frequented the occult environments, before starting a long conversion path, then joined the Dominican Third Order. While one day goes to Pompeii, overwhelmed by despair, the Virgin Mary appears to him and said to him: “If you spread the rosary, you will be saved”.

Touched by divine grace, Bartolo founded a sanctuary in 1876 in 1876 dedicated to the Virgin of the Holy Rosary. The avocado also makes up several prayers, including the supplied, approved by Pope Leon XIII.

Before dying in 1926, he donated all his property to the Holy See. In 1980 Pope John Paul II Beatifies it by calling it “as an apostle of the Rosary. »»