On Sunday, October 20, 2024, Pope Francis will celebrate the canonization of 14 blesseds. They include 11 martyrs murdered in Syria in the 19th century, as well as two nuns and a priest, all three founders of religious orders. With this ceremony, to be held in St. Peter’s Square at 10:30 a.m., the number of saints canonized by Francis will rise to 926, a record in the Catholic Church.
Starting with more than 800 Italian martyrs
In the first year of his pontificate, Pope Francis became the most prolific pontiff in terms of recognizing saints. While John Paul II had added 483 people to the catalog of saints in almost 27 years of pontificate, the Argentine pope declared more than 800 during his first canonization Mass celebrated in St. Peter’s Square in May 2013, two months after his election to the Throne of Peter.
Included in this exceptional group – whom Benedict XVI had actually approved on the day he announced his resignation on February 11, 2013 — were the 813 Italian martyrs of Otranto, massacred in 1480 by the Turks.
That same year, Francis carried out two other so-called “equipollent” canonizations: the Italian mystic Angela of Foligno and the French Jesuit Pierre Favre became saints after the publication of a simple papal decree, without the need for a canonization ceremony. The Argentine pontiff has used this exceptional procedure on several occasions.
Contrary to what many believe, the list of new saints is not necessarily linked to a personal choice by the pope. Certainly, the authorization to publish decrees falls under his magisterium. However, beatifications and canonizations are the fruit of a very long process, which can take several decades or even centuries.
For example, the Frenchman Charles de Foucauld was canonized in 2022 and Pope Francis does have a special devotion to him, but his cause was opened in 1926. John Paul II signed the decree recognizing the heroic virtues of Charles de Foucauld in 2001, and Benedict XVI beatified him in 2005.
In all, between 2,000 and 3,000 dossiers are currently being examined by the dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the pace of canonizations has slowed. Thus, 2020 was the first year without a canonization in almost 30 years. In 2021, only one new saint was proclaimed. While 12 new saints were celebrated in 2022, there were no canonizations in 2023.
A majority of Italians, followed by Brazilians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen
Sunday’s ceremony will be the second canonization celebration of 2024. In February, the Pope declared Argentina’s Mama Antula (1730-1799) – Maria Antonia De Paz y Figueroa was her baptismal name – a saint. She is a popular figure who brought to life in Argentina the spirituality of the founder of the Society of Jesus, the spiritual family of Pope Francis.
On Sunday, 11 martyrs from Syria will be added to the catalog of saints: eight Franciscan friar — seven Spaniards and one Austrian — and three lay Maronites, named Francis, Abdel Mooti, and Raphaël Massabki. These men were killed on July 9 and 10, 1860, in Damascus during the revolt of Druze militias against the Christian populations of Lebanon and Syria.
The other “blesseds” to be canonized are Italian priest Giuseppe Allamano (1851-1926); Canadian religious Marie-Léonie Paradis (1840-1912); and Italian religious Elena Guerra (1835-1914).
Among the saints proclaimed under Pope Francis’ pontificate, the overwhelming majority are of Italian origin, if we include the 813 martyrs of Otranto. Counting Sunday’s three new Italian saints, the Argentine pontiff has added a further 27 Italians to the catalog of saints.
Brazil, Spain, and France have been the biggest providers of saints since 2013, with 31, 13, and 7 new saints respectively.
Saintly popes
The list of great figures canonized under Francis includes three of his predecessors. In April 2014, Pope Francis — in the presence of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI — canonized John XXIII and John Paul II, marking a historical continuity between the popes.
John Paul II had made the same choice in 2000, beatifying Pius IX and John XXIII together.
In 2018, the Argentine pope also canonized Paul VI, the pope who concluded the Second Vatican Council.
Other great Catholic witnesses have been canonized since Francis’ election in 2013, including Mother Teresa of Calcutta (2016), Archbishop Óscar Romero (2018), and Cardinal John Henry Newman (2019), a former Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism.
In 2015, Pope Francis made Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the first couple in history to be canonized together. Two years later, in Portugal, the Pope canonized Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two young shepherds who witnessed the Marian apparitions at Fatima a century earlier, and the Church’s youngest non-martyr saints.
Formal saint-making
Keep in mind that canonization is simply a formal recognition that a soul is in heaven. The vast majority of saints will never be canonized. These include all the “next door saints” — as Pope Francis likes to call them — all the departed who are now enjoying Heaven and waiting and praying for us to join them.
We pray for all the souls in purgatory on their way to being saints in heaven!
And today we celebrate...