Pope Leo XIV spoke about the central importance of faith in today’s world as he declared that the Catholic Church has seven new saints—two from Venezuela, one from Papua New Guinea, one Armenian and three from Italy—on Sunday, Oct. 19 in a colorful and festive celebration in St. Peter’s Square, attended by 70,000 Italians and pilgrims from around the world.
The canonization took place at the beginning of the Mass, which the pope concelebrated with many cardinals, bishops and priests, in the presence of the presidents of Italy and Lebanon and official delegations from Venezuela and Armenia.
Portraits of the new saints were displayed on the façade of St. Peter’s Basilica throughout the ceremony, which began when Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints, standing before the pope, read the formal request asking the pontiff to declare the seven as saints. To support his request, he read out short biographies of each one, beginning with the two martyrs.
He recalled how the Armenian Catholic bishop, Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, was born in Turkey in 1869 and appointed bishop of his hometown, Mardin, in 1911. Four years later, he was arrested with many others on false charges of hiding weapons, and tortured. Asked to convert to Islam if he wished to be released, he refused and was put to death, a martyr for the faith.
The second martyr was Peter To Rot, born in Papua New Guinea,1912, and at the age of 18 trained to be a catechist and later married. After the Japanese army occupied the country in 1942, they imprisoned the European missionaries and prohibited the evangelizing mission in 1944. When the army legalized polygamy, he defended monogamous marriage as the Christian ideal and was arrested in 1945, sentenced to two months in prison and executed by lethal injection before his release. He is the first Papuan to be declared a saint.
Two of the new saints are Venezuelan. The first, Maria Carmen Rendiles Martínez (1903-77), notwithstanding physical disabilities, founded the Servants of Jesus, which did catechetical work, assisted the poor, the needy and priests. The second, a layman—José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros (1864-1919)—became a doctor and provided medical assistance to the poor, paying for medicine out of his own pocket, and was known as “the people’s doctor.”
Two Italian women religious are among the seven new saints. The first, Maria Troncatti (1883-1969), worked as a Salesian missionary in Ecuador and in the Amazonian forest and died in a plane crash. The other, Maria Vincenza Maria Poloni (1802-55), founded the Sisters of Mercy, and spent her life caring for the elderly, the sick and “the little ones.”
The third Italian to be declared saint was a layman and lawyer, Bartolo Longo (1841-1926), who became famous for propagating the rosary, founding the Marian Shrine of Pompei and helping the poor.
When Cardinal Semeraro finished reading their biographies, the choir sang the Litany of the Saints. Afterward, Pope Leo, speaking in Latin, solemly declared the seven “to be saints” and decreed “that they are to be venerated as such by the whole church.” At this, the vast crowd cheered and applauded enthusiastically, waving the flags of their countries and scarves with images of the new saints, as the choir sang the triple Alleluia.
Pope Leo then continued the celebration of the Mass, during which the Gospel was sung in both Latin and Greek and prayers were read in Armenian, English, Arabic, Portuguese and Tok Pisin—the main language in Papua New Guinea.
In his homily, the Augustinian pope reflected on the question raised by Jesus in the Gospel: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8). He remarked, “This question reveals to us what is most precious in the Lord’s eyes: faith, namely, the bond of love between God and man.”
“Today,” he said, “we have before us seven witnesses, the new saints, who, with God’s grace, kept the lamp of faith burning. Indeed, they themselves became lamps capable of spreading the light of Christ.”
He told those present in St. Peter’s Square on this sunny day and a global audience following the livestream:
When we consider the great material, cultural, scientific and artistic treasures, faith shines not because these goods are to be undervalued, but because without faith, they lose their meaning. Our relationship with God is of the utmost importance because at the beginning of time, he created all things out of nothing and, at the end of time, he will save mortal beings from nothingness. A world without faith, then, would be populated by children living without a Father, that is, by creatures without salvation.
It is for this reason, he said, that “Jesus, the Son of God made man, asks about faith: If it disappeared from the world, what would happen? Heaven and earth would remain as before, but there would no longer be hope in our hearts; everyone’s freedom would be defeated by death; our desire for life would fade into nothingness. Without faith in God, we cannot hope for salvation.”
“This is precisely why Christ speaks to his disciples of the ‘need to pray always, and not to lose heart,’” Leo said. “Just as we never grow weary of breathing, so let us never grow weary of praying! Just as breathing sustains the life of the body, so prayer sustains the life of the soul.”
Leo then noted: “Two temptations test our faith: The first draws strength from the scandal of evil, leading us to think that God does not hear the cries of the oppressed and has no pity for the innocent who suffer. The second temptation is the claim that God must act as we want him to: Prayer then gives way to a command to God, to teach him how to be just and effective.”
Jesus, he said, “frees us from both temptations” when “during his Passion, he prays thus: ‘Father, your will be done,’” and “he gives us these same words in the Our Father.”
Pope Leo said: “The church’s prayer reminds us that God grants justice to all, giving his life for all. Thus, when we cry out to the Lord, ‘Where are you?,’ let us transform this invocation into a prayer, and then we will recognize that God is present where the innocent suffer.”
Indeed, he said, “The cross of Christ reveals God’s justice, and God’s justice is forgiveness. He sees evil and redeems it by taking it upon himself. When we are ‘crucified’ by pain and violence, by hatred and war, Christ is already there, on the cross for us and with us.”
He told the crowd: “It is this faith that sustains our commitment to justice, precisely because we believe that God saves the world out of love, freeing us from fatalism. When we hear the cries of those in difficulty, let us ask ourselves, are we witnesses to the Father’s love, as Christ was to all?”
“We see all this [faith] in the lives of the new Saints: They are not heroes or champions of some ideal, but authentic men and women,” Leo said.
Turning to the lives of the recently canonized, he said:
These faithful friends of Christ are martyrs for their faith, like Bishop Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan and catechist Peter To Rot; they are evangelizers and missionaries, like Sister Maria Troncatti; they are charismatic founders, like Sister Vincenza Maria Poloni and Sister Maria del Monte Carmelo Rendiles Martínez; with their hearts burning with devotion, they are benefactors of humanity, like Bartolo Longo and José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros.
Pope Leo concluded his homily with this prayer: “May their intercession assist us in our trials and their example inspire us in our shared vocation to holiness. As we journey toward this goal, let us pray without ceasing, and continue in what we have learned and firmly believe. Faith on earth thus sustains the hope for heaven.”
Before giving his blessing at the end of Mass and driving among the crowd in the popemobile, the missionary pope recalled that today is Mission Sunday, and said that “while the whole church is missionary, we pray especially for those men and women who have left everything to bring the Gospel to those who do not know it. They are missionaries of hope among all peoples. May the Lord bless them!”
He also drew attention to Myanmar, where armed conflict and the bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure continue. He expressed his closeness to the people there, and called for “an immediate and effective ceasefire.” He also appealed for peace in the Holy Land and Ukraine, and prayed, “May God grant all their leaders the wisdom and perseverance to advance in the search for a just and lasting peace.”
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