CV NEWS FEED // Pope Francis on March 31 approved the canonization of 3 blesseds, including Blessed Peter To Rot, who will become the first saint from Papua New Guinea.
Vatican News reported that Pope Francis also cleared the canonization of an archbishop and a religious sister as well as the beatification of Italy’s Father Carmelo de Palma. In addition, he declared Father José Antônio de Maria Ibiapina, a 19th-century Brazilian priest, worthy of veneration.
Blessed Peter was born in 1912, converted to Christianity later in life, and eventually became a catechist. During Japan’s occupation of Papua New Guinea during World War II, Bl. Peter helped prepare couples for marriage since missionaries were imprisoned. He eventually had to carry out his apostolate in secret due to religious persecution.
Bl. Peter condemned polygamy, a common practice in Papua New Guinea, and confronted his brother when he took a second wife. The brother turned him over to the police, and Bl. Peter was imprisoned for two months and died from poisoning there in July 1945.
The Pope also approved the canonization of Blessed Ignatius Choukrallah Maloyan, an Armenian archbishop. Born in modern-day Turkey in 1869, he was appointed as archbishop of Mardin in 1911 by Pope Pius X.
Blessed Ignatius was arrested along with 13 priests and 600 other Christians during the Armenian genocide. He was martyred June 3, 1915, for refusing to renounce the faith.
Pope Francis approved the canonization of the first Venezuelan-born saint, Blessed Maria del Monte Carmelo, born Carmen Elena Rendíles Martínez in Caracas on August 11, 1903.
Bl. Maria was a religious sister who helped found the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus in 1946. She spent the last three years of her life in a wheelchair after a car accident. She passed away on May 9, 1977, and is set to become the first Venezuelan-born saint.
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