Pope Francis will bless ten new saints at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, 15th, among them Uruguay’s first, Francisca Rubatto (1844-1904), an Italian-Uruguayan nun who spent part of her life in South America.

Dozens of believers from different countries are expected to attend the ceremony, which will be held for the first time in three years. In it, the Frenchman Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) will also receive the honor of the altars; Dutch journalist Titus Brandsma was executed in the Nazi death camp in Dachau in 1942; and Lazarus, an 18th-century Indian martyr.

This is one of the largest canonizations in history, which, among others, will be attended by the late Prime Minister of France, Jean Castex, as well as delegations from Latin America and Africa, as well as representatives of relatives and religious orders.

“While Uruguay doesn’t have the religious practices we have elsewhere, witnesses like this touch it a lot,” Uruguayan Bishop Carlos Collazzi, former chairman of the Uruguay Episcopal Conference, who will be attending the ceremony, told Vatican News. a religious delegation from his country.

Born in the northern Italian town of Carmagnola on February 14, 1844, Rubatto lived and continued his pastoral work in Uruguay, where he died on August 6, 1904. sick, especially abandoned children, young people and the elderly.

In 1892, he went to Latin America to pursue his apostleship in Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil with four devotees from the congregation, where he founded the Capuchin Sisters of Mother Rubatto.

On October 10, 1993, Pope II. He was declared blessed by John Paul, and in 2020 the Church accepted his intervention in a second miracle. With that, he can become a saint according to Vatican norms.

The miracle was the inexplicable recovery of a young Uruguayan woman in 2000 after being in a motorcycle accident while in a coma.

Foucault: the fraternity model

The life of the French monk Charles de Foucauld, who was killed in the Algerian desert in 1916, is considered an example for all Catholics, according to Pope Francis himself, who praised “the ability to feel like everyone’s brother.”

“He was a young agnostic brought up in the Christian faith, a Cavalry officer consumed by his passions, an explorer, a Trappist after meeting the God of Mercy, and eventually a hermit given to all things in the Sahara Desert. The witnesses of the Bible are rich and not cruel,” he summarizes. Pope in an article in Vatican News.

Declared blessed by Benedict XVI in 2005, he will be canonized after intervening a second miracle, according to the Vatican: the recovery of a young carpenter after a serious fall.

“It’s extremely important to the Algerian Church because it’s where he spent most of his incredible life,” Monsignor Jean-Paul Vesco, Archbishop of Algeria, who will be attending the ceremony, told AFP.

Among the ten new saints are the Frenchman César de Bus (1544-1607), founder of the congregation of the Fathers of Christian Doctrine, who worked for the rebirth of Christianity in a troubled time from the beginning of the Protestant Reformation; and Sister Marie Rivier (1768-1838), a teacher who founded the Congregation of the Presentation of Mary.

The canonization of Dutch intellectual and journalist Titus Brandsma (1881-1942), known for his opposition to Nazi propaganda during the Second World War, was enthusiastically received in the Catholic press. A group of journalists signed an open letter this week asking the Pope to designate Brandsma as the patron saint of this professional category.

The first Indian priest to become a saint would be Devashaayam Pillai (1712-1752), a martyr of Lazarus, a Hindu convert to Christianity. Imprisoned, tortured for three years and then executed, he refused to renounce his faith.

Complementing the list of future saints are Italian priests Luigi Maria Palazzolo (1827-1886) and Giustino Maria Russolillo (1891-1955), and Italian nuns Maria Domenica Mantovani (1862-1934) and Maria di Gesu Santocanale (1852-1923).