Seven New Saints for the Church on October 21, 2012

(February 18, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI will declare seven new saints for the Catholic Church on October 21^st this year. The Pope announced this on Saturday at St Peter’s Basilica Rome after the ceremony of creating the new Cardinals. While making the announcement the Pontiff said that the new saints are proposed to the whole church as examples of Christian life and holiness. They are French Jesuit priest Jacques Berthieu who was martyred in Madagascar in 1838; Pedro Calungsod, a lay catechist, martyr, born in Ginatilan or Naga in Cebu Philippines and died in 1672; Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Priest, Founder of the Congregation of Holy Family of Nazareth and the Sisters Servants of the Lord Humble, Italy and died in1913; Maria de Monte Carmelo sallés y barangueras, Founder of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters Conceptionist Teaching, in Spain and died in 1911; Marianne Cope, professed religious of the Congregation of Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Syracuse (New York), known as Mother Marianne of Molokai, born in Germany and died in Molokai in 1918; native American lay woman Kateri Tekakwitha, from USA and died in Canada in 1680; and Anna Schaffer a secular person born in Germany and died in 1925. The Catholic Church’s process leading to canonization involves there major steps. First is the declaration of a person’s heroic virtues, after which the church gives him or her title Venerable. Second is beatification, after which he or she is called Blessed. The third step is canonization, or declaration of sainthood. At various steps in the canonization process, evidence of alleged miracles is presented to church authorities. In general, two miracles need to be accepted by the church as having occurred through the intercession of the prospective saint.