Post date: May 12, 2013 12:34:25 PM
Pope Francis proclaims the first Colombian saint and the second female saint forMexico, as well as some 800 Italians killed by Ottoman Turks in the 15th century when they refused to convert to Islam and says many Christians around the world are still being persecuted for their faith.
VATICAN (MAY 12, 2013) (CTV) - Pope Francis Sunday (May 12) proclaimed as saints some 800 Italians killed by Ottoman Turks in the 15th century when they refused to convert to Islam and said many Christians around the world were still being persecuted for their faith.
At his first canonisation ceremony since his election on March 13, Francis also proclaimed Colombia's first saint - a nun who died in 1949, and a Mexican nun who died in 1963.The canonisations were decided by Francis's predecessor, Benedict, in a decree signed on February 11, at the same meeting with cardinals where he announced his resignation.
The 800 Italians, known as Antonio Primaldo and his Companions, were killed in 1480 in the siege of Otranto, on the southeastern corner of the Italian peninsula on the Adriatic Sea by Ottoman Turks who sacked the city and killed its archbishop.
The citizens were ordered to surrender and convert to Islam. When they refused, the Ottoman commanding officer, Gedik Ahmed Pasha, ordered all the men 15 or older to be executed, most by beheading. They are known in Church history as the Otranto Martyrs. The Turks were expelled by forces of the Kingdom of Naples a year after the massacre.
"While we venerate the Otranto Martyrs, we ask God to sustain the many Christians who, today, in many parts of the world, right now, still suffer violence and to give them the courage to be faithful and to respond to evil with good," Francis said in his homily before more than 70,000 people in an overcast St. Peter's Square.
The pope did not mention any countries, but the Vatican has expressed deep concern recently about the fate of Christians in parts of the Middle East, including Coptic Christians who have been caught up in sectarian strife in Egypt.
The Vatican seemed at pains not to allow the canonisation of the Otranto Martyrs to be interpreted as anti-Islam saying the deaths of the 'Otranto Marytrs' must be understood in their historical context.
The Otranto Martyrs "must be placed with the historical context of the wars that determined relations between Europe and the Ottoman Empire for a long period of time" says a booklet handed out before the service.
Pope Emeritus Benedict, who is now living out his retirement secluded in a Vatican convent, made a speech in Regensburg, Germany which was perceived by some Muslims as equating their religion with violence.
Benedict said he was misunderstood and later visited a mosque in Turkey and prayed with an imam.
Also canonised by Pope Francis at Sunday's service were Sister Laura Montoya y Upegui, who was born in Colombia in 1874 and founded an order of nuns to help indigenous people. She died in 1949.
"Through the mediation of Mother Laura Montoya, may the Lord grant the Church with a new missionary and evangelizing force and, that inspired by the example of harmony and reconciliation of this new saint, the beloved children of Colombiacontinue to work for peace and fair development of their homeland," the Argentine pope said in Spanish.
The third new saint was Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala, of Mexico. A nun, she dedicated her life to the sick and the poor.
"In the hands of Santa Guadalupe García Zavala we place all the poor, the sick and those who assist them, and entrust to her intercession the noble nation of Mexico, that it may banish all violence and insecurity, increasingly advance the path of solidarity and fraternal coexistence," the pope said.
At the end of the Mass, Francis made his first appeal as pope against abortion, saying that life must be respected from the moment of conception and throwing his weight behind an Italian group promoting legal protection for embryos.
"I ask you to keep the attention on an issue of great importance; the respect for human life from the moment of conception. In this regard, I am pleased to remind you of the collection of signatures taking place in many Italian parishes to support the European initiative called "One of Us", to guarantee legal protection for embryos and protecting every human being from the first moment of their existence," he said, before climbing on the back of his open-back jeep and being driven around St. Peter's Square to greet the large number of faithful gathered for the ceremony.
Roman Catholic sainthood requires that two separate miracles be attributed to those who are being made saints - one before the first step, beatification, and another before canonisation.
A miracle is usually the inexplicable healing of a person who prays to dead person who lived a holy life and therefore is believed to be with God.
In the case of the 800 Italians, the requirement for the first miracle was waved because they died in hatred of the faith.
The miracle approved for their canonisation was that of a nun who had cancer which, according to the Church, inexplicably healed after she prayed at a memorial to the martyrs.