Sr. Alphonsa will be India's first woman saint on Oct. 12

(March 1, 2008) India will have its first ever woman saint on October 12^th this year when the Catholic Church will canonize Blessed Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, a Franciscan Clarist nun from southern India’s Kerala state. The date for conferring sainthood on Sr. Alphonsa and three others were decided upon on Saturday at a public ordinary consistory presided over by Pope Benedict XVI. The other three future saints are Italian priest, Fr. Gaetano Errico, founder of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; Swiss nun, Sr. Maria Bernarda Butler, foundress of the Congregation of the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of Mary Help of Christians; and a lay woman from Ecuador, Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moran. The first Indian saint, however, is Gonzalo Garcia who went to Japan and was crucified in Nagasaki in 1597. He was canonized in 1862.
Sr. Alphonsa, whose maiden name was Anna Muttathupadathu, was born on August 19, 1910 at Kudamaloor, Kottayam in the Archdiocese of Changanacherry. Her life was anything but extraordinary or remarkable. She was stricken with suffering and sickness falling ill with double pneumonia in June 1939 and was again seriously ill in 1940. She died on July 28, 1946, just before her 36th birthday. The Vatican's process for declaring a Blessed requires that a miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession be confirmed. A second miracle is necessary for canonization when the candidate is declared a saint. Sr. Alphonsa was declared Blessed by Pope John Paul II on February 8, 1986 at Kottayam, Kerala, during his first visit to India. On June 1 last year, Pope Benedict XVI formally recognized a miracle attributed to her intercession.