CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A person revered by thousands and thousands because the “physician of the poor” would be the first saint from Venezuela after Pope Francis accepted a decree Tuesday.
A date for the canonization of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández, who died in 1919, has not been set. The Vatican in a press release mentioned Francis additionally determined to convene a proper assembly of cardinals to set the dates for future canonizations, but it surely was not instantly scheduled.
“This historic occasion, lengthy awaited by the Venezuelan individuals, is a recognition of the exemplary life and heroic virtues of a person who devoted his existence to assuaging human struggling and transmitting a message of affection and hope,” the Archdiocese of Caracas mentioned in a press release. “The Catholic Church acknowledges his lifetime of holiness, accompanied by a common devotion, which at the moment permits him to be elevated to the altar.”
Hernández was beatified in April 2021 after the church licensed a miracle within the case of a woman who fully recovered after being shot within the head in 2017.
Hernández, born on Oct. 26, 1864, within the western Venezuela city of Isnotu, by no means married and graduated as a health care provider in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, in 1888. He was satisfied that science was one of many most important methods to get the South American nation out of distress and went on to ascertain two analysis establishments in addition to train a number of lessons on the Central College of Venezuela, the nation’s oldest and largest.
He traveled to Europe to review after which to turn out to be a Catholic monk, however his fragile well being was affected by Italy’s chilly and humid climate. He returned to Venezuela to recuperate and stayed completely.
On June 29, 1919, Hernández was hit by a automotive whereas crossing a avenue shortly after choosing up drugs at a pharmacy to take to an impoverished girl. His dying was brought on when his head hit the sting of a sidewalk. An estimated 20,000 individuals participated in his funeral procession, a couple of quarter of the inhabitants of Caracas on the time.
In 1986, the Vatican declared Hernández “venerable,” which signifies that he led an exemplary Christian life. However to realize sanctity, groups of medical doctors, theologians and cardinals should approve miracles attributed to him.
When Pope John Paul II, now a saint, visited Venezuela in 1996, he acquired a petition signed by 5 million individuals — on the time, virtually one in 4 Venezuelans — asking him to declare Hernández a saint.
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