Monday, February 28, 2011

Pope to create three new saints, including founder of Xaverian order

Pope Benedict XVI will create three new saints Oct. 23, including the founder of the Xaverian missionaries, Blessed Guido Maria Conforti.

The pope announced the date for the canonization ceremony at the end of what is known as an ordinary public consistory, a formal ceremony opened and closed with prayer, during which cardinals present in Rome express their support for the pope's decision to create new saints.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, read brief biographies of the three in Latin.

Blessed Conforti, founder of the Xaverian Foreign Missionary Society, was born in 1865 in Italy.

Vice rector of a seminary even before his priestly ordination, he was said to have filled seminarians with an awareness of their obligation to be missionaries.

In 1895, seven years after becoming a priest, he founded a congregation of consecrated men dedicated to the evangelization of non-Christians.

Named bishop of Ravenna in 1902, he was plagued by ill health and decided to resign. But five years later, he was once again named a bishop, this time as head of the Diocese of Parma. He visited the Xaverian missionaries in China a few years before his death in 1931. Pope John Paul II declared him "blessed" in 1996.

The Xaverian missionaries today include 793 priests and brothers, and 183 Xaverian sisters; they have a strong presence in Europe and the Americas.

The others to be canonized Oct. 23, World Mission Sunday, are:

-- Blessed Louis Guanella, an Italian priest who lived 1842-1915. He founded the Servants of Charity, the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence, and the Confraternity of St. Joseph, whose members pledge to pray for the sick and dying.

-- Blessed Bonifacia Rodriguez Castro, who lived 1837-1905. The Spanish founded the Servants of St. Joseph, a congregation originally dedicated to providing a religious and technical education to poor women.