In March 1716 he was well enough to return to Naples where he stayed in the hospital wing. In mid-1716, he died from pleurisy after a fortnight of great pain. His remains were buried in a leaden coffin but when they were exhumed on 3 July 1736 it was discovered that they had turned to dust. The dust was collected and deposited into a coffin of wood lined with brass. Cardinal Orsini - the future Pope Benedict XIII - dedicated an entire sermon to him in the Benevento Cathedral. There is a chapel dedicated to him at Gesù Nuovo in Naples, and in 1934 Francesco Jerace sculpted the statue that honors him. Sainthood Not long after the Jesuit died, the Naples archdiocese petitioned the Congregation for Rites to begin the sainthood process; the Nola and Benevento dioceses made similar requests. On 2 May 1758 he was proclaimed to be Venerable after Pope Benedict XIV declared in a formal decree that the late Jesuit priest had practiced the theological and cardinal virtues in a heroic fashion. He would have been beatified soon afterwards but the storm surrounding the suppression of the order led to the suspension of the beatification process. Pope Pius VII approved two miracles attributed to him and beatified him on 2 May 1806 in Saint Peter's Basilica, while the confirmation of two more miracles saw Pope Gregory XVI canonize Francesco de Geronimo as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on 26 May 1839. Writings Francesco de Geronimo wrote little. Some of his letters have been used in biographical works and cited by other authors. The archives of the Jesuits contain a voluminous collection of his sermons. The account he wrote to his superiors of the fifteen most laborious years of his ministry dates from October 1693. He called it Brevi notizie della cose di gloria di Dio accadute negli exercizi delle sacri missioni di Napoli da quindici anni in quâ, quanto si potuto richiamare in memoria. Giuseppe Boero published it in S. Francesco di Girolamo, e le sue missioni dentro e fuori di Napoli, p. 67-181 (Florence, 1882). References Sources For his writings, cf. Carlos Sommervogel, "Bibl. de la Compagnie de Jésus", new ed., III, column 1358 External links Saints SQPN The Jesuit Curia in Rome Santi e Beati 1642 births 1716 deaths 17th-century Christian saints 17th-century venerated Christians 17th-century Italian Jesuits 18th-century Christian saints 18th-century venerated