Pope Canonizes 7 new saints, including former satanist

International

BEFORE a crowd of about 70,000 faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV canonized seven new saints on Sunday, honoring men and women whose lives, he said, “kept the lamp of faith burning.”

In a report by Catholic News Agency, the newly declared saints include the first from Venezuela and Papua New Guinea, as well as a former Satanist who became a tireless promoter of the rosary.

“Today we have before us seven witnesses who, with God’s grace, became lamps capable of spreading the light of Christ,” Pope Leo said during his homily at the Oct. 19 Mass. “May their intercession assist us in our trials and their example inspire us toward holiness.”

Venezuelan flags waved across the square as the pontiff declared St. José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros, a physician known as “the doctor of the poor,” and St. María del Carmen Rendiles Martínez, a nun born without her left arm who founded the Servants of Jesus, as the country’s first saints.

Both have long been revered in Venezuela for their compassion and service to the poor.

St. Peter To Rot, a lay catechist from Papua New Guinea, became the nation’s first saint.

He was executed during World War II after defying Japanese authorities who had permitted polygamy, defending the sanctity of Christian marriage until his death.

Another martyr, St. Ignatius Maloyan, the Armenian Catholic archbishop executed during the Armenian genocide, was also canonized.

Before his death, he reportedly said, “The shedding of my blood for my faith is the sweetest desire of my heart.”

Among the new saints is St. Bartolo Longo, a 19th-century Italian lawyer who abandoned Satanism after a profound conversion to Catholicism.

Devoting his life to the rosary, Longo founded the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, now one of Italy’s most visited pilgrimage sites.

Three women were also canonized for their work in charity and missionary service: St. Vincenza Maria Poloni, an Italian nun who risked her life caring for cholera victims in Verona; St. María del Carmen Rendiles Martínez of Venezuela; and St. Maria Troncatti, a Salesian missionary who served among Ecuador’s Shuar people for more than four decades.

The canonization ceremony coincided with World Mission Sunday, reflecting Pope Leo XIV’s missionary background as a former Augustinian priest in Peru.

“The Church is entirely missionary,” he reminded the crowd before praying the Angelus. “We pray today especially for those who left everything to bring the Gospel to those who do not know it.”

Closing his remarks, Pope Leo made a renewed appeal for global peace, expressing sorrow over renewed violence in Myanmar and ongoing conflicts in the Holy Land and Ukraine.

“May the instruments of war give way to those of peace,” he said, entrusting his prayer to the intercession of the newly canonized saints.(Xienderlyn Trinidad, USJ-R Comm Intern)