Pope Francis on Sunday created 10 new saints, including a Dutch priest-journalist who was killed by the Nazis, a lay Indian convert who was killed for his faith, and a half-dozen French and Italian priests and nuns who founded religious orders. Francis told the crowd of more than 45,000 people at the Vatican in Rome that the 10 embodied holiness in everyday life, saying the church needs to embrace this idea rather than an unattainable ideal of personal achievement. "Holiness does not consist of a few heroic gestures, but of many small acts of daily love," the pope said, per the AP.
The pope, who has been dealing with knee pain, used a wheelchair in presiding over the first canonization ceremony at the Vatican in over two years. For months, Francis has complained of strained ligaments in his right knee. Sunday's ceremony was evidence that Francis, 85, is still able to still walk, as he did in greeting dozens of cardinals and bishops after the nearly two-hour ceremony. The new saints are:
- The Rev. Titus Brandsma. The Dutch martyr was killed at the Dachau concentration camp in 1942. A group of Dutch and German journalists has formally proposed that Brandsma become a co-patron saint of journalists, alongside St. Francis de Sales, given his work to combat propaganda and fake news during the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe. The journalists noted that Brandsma successfully argued for a ban on printing Nazi propaganda in Catholic newspapers. The pope did not immediately respond.
- Lazarus, or Devashayam. The 18th-century Indian convert mixed with India's lower castes and was considered treasonous by India's royal palace, which ordered him arrested and executed in 1752. "He is for the poor people," said Arachi Syril, an Indian pilgrim from Kanyakumari who was in the square Sunday for the Mass. "He hated the caste system, still it is going on, but he is the martyr for that."
- César de Bus. The French priest who founded the Fathers of Christian Doctrine religious order. He died in 1607.
- Luigi Maria Palazzolo. The Italian priest, who cared for orphans, died in 1886.
- Giustino Maria Russolillo. The Italian priest who founded a religious order dedicated to promoting religious vocations. He died in 1955.
- Charles de Foucauld. The French missionary rediscovered his faith as a young man, then decided to live among the Tuareg peoples in the Algerian Sahara. He was killed in 1916.
- Marie Rivier. She overcame a sickly childhood in France to become a nun and found a religious order. She died in 1838.
- Maria Francesca di Gesù Rubatto. The Italian nun helped found a religious order. She died in 1904 in Montevideo, Uruguay.
- Maria di Gesù Santocanale. The Italian nun founded a religious order. She died in 1923.
- Domenica Mantovani. An Italian nun, she founded a religious order and died in 1934. The Little Sisters of the Holy Family now serves children, families, priests, the elderly, and the disabled in Europe, Africa, and South America, per the Vatican news service.
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