Saturday, June 28, 2008

Nun Elizabeth Prout could become saint

A nun who helped educate women in the slums of Manchester is being put forward to become a saint.

Sister Elizabeth Prout is seen as a pioneer of women's rights for her work in teaching the poor during the 19th century, and helping them find jobs.

A local Roman Catholic church group has spent the past 15 years preparing a file on her remarkable life, which will be sent to the Vatican after a Mass by her tomb tomorrow.

She will then join three other Britons whose causes for sainthood are being considered by the church, including a distant relation of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Fr Barry McAllister, a Liverpool priest who has been involved in preparing the Cause of Sister Elizabeth Prout, described her as a "great forerunner of women's rights and of women having a role in society."

He added: "We are at a stage where we are tying up the loose ends.

"After the archbishop's Mass, the Cause will go off to Rome."

Sister Elizabeth was born in Shrewsbury in 1820 to Anglican parents, and converted to Roman Catholicism in her 20s after coming under the influence of a Passionist missionary.

She became a nun in an order in Northampton but later moved to one of the poorest areas of Manchester and got a job in a local school, teaching the children of Irish migrants and factory workers.

Confronted with the squalid conditions of the industrial slums, Sister Elizabeth began to visit the sick and needy, and soon other women began to join her cause.

She founded a religious community called the Sisters of the Holy Family, and adopted the name Mother Mary Joseph of Jesus.

Sister Elizabeth and her fellow nuns opened a school for poor children and began training women in the skills they needed to find work.

She made sure the nuns earned their own livings and supported themselves, as well as teaching the women of Manchester to do the same, leading some priests to criticise her "revolutionary ideas".

But the Vatican approved her order of nuns in 1863 and put her in charge.

However Sister Elizabeth died the following year, aged just 43, worn down by her work for the poor and in keeping her order afloat financially.

During her short life she worked with Fr Ignatius Spencer, the great-great-great uncle of Diana, Princess of Wales who was also a Passionist missionary and who is also now being considered for sainthood.

Her body was later exhumed and buried alongside him in the Church of St Anne & Blessed Dominic in Sutton, Lancs, where the Mass celebrated by Archbishop Patrick Kelly of Liverpool will take place this weekend.

Another contemporary of Sister Elizabeth and Fr Spencer, Cardinal John Henry Newman, is likely to have his beatification announced by Pope Benedict XVI this year.

The fourth Briton in line to become a saint is Sister Margaret Sinclair, a Scottish nun who in the last century died of tuberculosis while tending to the poor of Edinburgh.

After receiving the file on Sister Elizabeth's life, the Vatican will study it before deciding whether she can become a saint. Two miracles must also be attributed to her.

The last Briton to be canonized was St John Ogilvie, a Scottish Catholic martyr, who was made a saint by Pope Paul VI in 1976.
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