Monsignor Joseph Panjikaran, who died on November 4, 1949, aged 61, is the latest person from India to become a venerable, the second of the four-stage canonization process. A miracle through his intercession, if approved by the Vatican, will lead to his beatification.
The decision was announced through the Promulgation of Decrees by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, following authorisation granted during an audience of Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery, with the Pope.
Monsignor Panjikaran was born on September 10, 1888, in Uzhuva, as the second child of the late Chacko and Mariam Panchikaran, a Syro-Malabar family.
After completing his matriculation in 1906, he graduated in History from Jesuit-managed St. Joseph College in Thiruchinappilly (Trichy) in present day Tamil Nadu. In 1913, he became the first St. Thomas Christians in Kerala to obtain a master’s degree.
After college studies, he joined the minor seminary at Ernakulam. He was later sent to the Papal Seminary at Kandy, Sri Lanka, for philosophy and theology studies. He was ordained a priest on December 21, 1918, at the Kandy seminary.
Returning to Kerala, he served as a teacher at St. Mary’s High School, Aluva, from 1919 to 1922, and as director of the Propagation of Faith in the Archdiocese of Ernakulam from 1921 until his death.
He undertook the construction of the Dharmagiri (Mount of Charity) Hospital in Kothamangalam. He founded the congregation for the management of the hospital, which was the first Catholic hospital to use the allopathic system of medicine.
In 1925, he represented India at the Vatican mission exhibition in Rome and was awarded by Pope Pius XI. During this period, he completed doctorates in Philosophy, Theology, and Canon Law.
Monsignor Panjikaran later served as director of Archdiocesan publications, including Sathyadeepam and Malabar Mail. He documented the historical background of the Syro-Malabar Church in Kerala.
The 12 approved for beatification are nine seminarians, a diocesan priest, and a layman, who were martyred during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. The twelve is Enrique Ernesto Shaw, a family man and an entrepreneur from Argentina, who died in 1962.
The other two venerable are Italian religious – Fra Berardo Atonna and Sister Domenica Caterina dello Spirito Santo.