Filipino catechist now on the road to canonization

Ka Luring Franco was a saintly lay catechist who died in 2011 at the age of 75. The local bishop officially inaugurated her cause for canonization.

Ka Luring Franco dedicated much of her life to being a catechist in the Philippines. She is remembered as a holy and faithful woman who gave up a well-paying job to become a volunteer catechist.

Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara of the Diocese of Pasig praised the example of Franco in an interview with UCA News.

“Ka Luring never tired of serving the parish, especially the poor. She did this not in an extraordinary way but in simple ways, such as teaching faith to children.” One becomes like Jesus by teaching about Jesus to others, he said. “This is how holiness is reflected in her life.”

She said in an interview in 1995, “They couldn’t understand it when I explained I was happiest teaching catechism to children.”

During her ministry she received a variety of awards for her dedication, such as the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, the highest papal honor for laypeople and clergy, in 1990, as well as the Mother Teresa Award in 2002.

This announcement is the first step in the canonization process. It is now up to the local diocese to investigate her life and to determine if she lived a life of “heroic virtue.”