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VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI has beatified 563 people and created
14 new saints since the start of his papacy, more than keeping pace
with his predecessor, a Vatican cardinal said on Monday.
The total, 577, is a
“considerable number” compared with the 1,338 beatifications and
482 canonizations approved by John Paul II in his nearly 27 years as
pontiff, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins told a news conference.
Benedict XVI has “great awareness
of the holiness of the Church,” Saraiva Martins said, adding that
the work of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints — the
Vatican department he heads — has “not changed” since the
German pope was elected in April 2005.
Candidates for sainthood must first
be beatified, earning the title of “blessed.” The Catholic
faithful believe that prayers to either can result in intercession
with God on their behalf.
The bulk of those so far beatified
by Benedict XVI are 498 “martyrs” of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil
War, during which the Church supported the nationalists of General
Francisco Franco.
The priests, nuns and other
Catholics killed by left-wing forces were elevated in October last
year in the biggest mass beatification in the history of the Roman
Catholic Church.
Also Monday, Saraiva Martins said
the beatification process for John Paul II was well under way but
would not be accelerated.
Benedict authorized the start of
John Paul II’s beatification process a few weeks after the Polish
pope died in April 2005, waiving the usual five-year waiting period.
The only precedent for the waiver
was when John Paul II put Mother Teresa on the fast track to
sainthood and beatified the Albanian nun seven years after her
death.
Just last week Benedict XVI allowed
a third waiver, for Sister Lucia of Jesus, a Portuguese visionary
who died in 2005. She was one of three children who claimed to have
seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1917 in Fatima, Portugal.
Saraiva Martins also said the
beatification process of pope Pius XII, whose role during World War
II remains controversial, was continuing.
Vatican sources said in December
that a special commission had been set up to study the dossier amid
objections notably from Jewish organizations over his silence during
the Holocaust.
Saraiva Martins described the
position as “discretion” rather than silence.
The cardinal also unveiled a new
instruction from the Vatican calling on dioceses to show greater
rigor in submitting beatification dossiers.
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