Hall of Fame baseball player Roberto Clemente is one step closer to becoming a saint, according to Christian Newswire, which reported late last month that Pope Francis officially declared the former Pittsburgh Pirate "blessed." With beatification, the Puerto Rican has just one step left to become a saint, according to the Catholic Church.
The pope's official blessing came after Clemente apparently met the requirement to perform a miracle. The alleged miracle happened last month when former Olympian Jamie Nieto, who once played Clemente in the film "Baseball's Last Hero," managed to walk again after a back-flip accident in April 2016 rendered the high jumper partially paralyzed from the neck down. His signature move during his competitive years more than a decade ago, Nieto tried to perform the move as a coach, but slipped and broke his neck.
Despite given a slim chance by doctors to regain enough strength and mobility in his legs to walk again, Nieto proved them wrong, the Associated Press reports. The Olympian took 130 nearly unaided steps at his wedding to Jamaican hurdler Shevon Stoddart. He had proposed to her while still in a wheelchair just six months after his accident.
While Nieto credited his recovery to his having "worked really hard," according to the AP, "Baseball's Last Hero" director Richard Rossi credited Nieto's "miracle" recovery to the spirit of Clemente. His proof, according to Christian Newswire, is documented in a letter he wrote last year to Pope Francis.
"In meditation, it was revealed to me that Roberto Clemente was a saint," Rossi wrote. "I saw a miracle healing of Jamie Nieto. He will walk at his own wedding to show the grace of the sacrament of marriage. Jesus performed his first miracle at the wedding of Cana."
According to Rossi, who began his campaign to make Clemente a saint in 2014, this is not the first miracle to occur in Clemente's name. Rossi also contends Clemente, a devout Catholic who died in 1972 while attempting to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, performed miracles while he was alive, as well. According to a Religion News Service article from 2014, Rossi and a group of volunteers spent time traveling to hear stories about Clemente and used scientific tools, medical records and other methods to try to verify Clemente's "miraculous healing touch."
To become canonized, potential saints need to show proof of at least two miracles. With the first one now apparently down, the world now must wait for the verification of a second.
Rossi did not immediately return The Washington Post's request to comment about what that next miracle may entail, but he showed enthusiasm for last month's news, tweeting Clemente's beatification essentially "greenlights [the player] for canonization."
A cardinal who helped change Catholic missionary work in China is now a possible candidate for beatification.
In 1953, Celso Costantini was made a cardinal by Pius XII. He passed away in 1958.
B&P, sanctity is not about making baseball fans happy. I don't think it matters that much.
Here is the Washington Posts take on the matter. Well I guess that as good as the Chicage Tribune.
Perhaps a tweet crossed your timeline in the past few weeks, alerting you that Baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente was on his way to becoming a saint after being officially "blessed" by Pope Francis.
That's "not true," Vatican officials told The Post on Thursday. While they couldn't confirm whether anyone has petitioned Pope Francis for sainthood on Clemente's behalf, both the Vatican and Thomas Rosica, CSB, who works as an English-language press attache for the Vatican in Canada, denied the Puerto Rican native has been beatified.
This likely will come as a disappointment to Richard Rossi, who since 2014 has been trying to drum up support to make Clemente a saint.
Rossi's journey began after he directed "Baseball's Last Hero," an independent film about the life of Clemente, the Pittsburgh Pirates star and devout Catholic who died in 1972 while attempting to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
To become canonized, potential saints need to show proof of at least two miracles. Rossi has claimed that the first came last month, when former Olympian Jamie Nieto — who played Clemente in Rossi's film — managed to walk again after a back-flip accident in April 2016 rendered the high jumper partially paralyzed from the neck down. His signature move during his competitive years more than a decade ago, Nieto tried to perform the move as a coach but slipped and broke his neck.
While Nieto credited his recovery to his having "worked really hard," according to the AP, Rossi apparently credited Nieto's recovery to the spirit of Clemente. His proof, according to what appears to be a fake news release posted to Christian Newswire, is documented in a supposed letter he wrote last year to Pope Francis.."In meditation, it was revealed to me that Roberto Clemente was a saint," said Rossi of what he wrote in that letter. "I saw a miracle healing of Jamie Nieto. He will walk at his own wedding to show the grace of the sacrament of marriage. Jesus performed his first miracle at the wedding of Cana.".The Vatican could not immediately confirm whether it received such a letter or that anyone in the Church may have ever replied to Rossi..Pope Francis receives thousands of letters every day," a Vatican spokeswoman said..Rossi provided a photograph of a letter that appeared to come from the Vatican that was dated December 2014 and signed by P. Boguslaw Turek. The letter stated that any attempt to canonize Clemente must first go through the Archbishop of San Juan in Puerto Rico. .Rossi admitted in an email to The Post: "[T]he Archbishop of Puerto Rico has been less passionate than Pope Francis" about making Clemente a saint, but insisted it will happen..The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Rossi, who grew up near Pittsburgh, was the pastor of a nontraditional church in Cranberry, Pa., who was charged in 1994 with attempted murder in the beating of his wife. According to the Post-Gazette, she recanted her story, the trial ended in a hung jury, and he served 96 days in jail after a plea bargain. He and his family moved to Southern California in the mid-1990s, where he became pastor of a church in Long Beach, but left after charges of misdirected funds, the paper said.
APologies for the atrocious formatting.
Any informed Catholic could see through this thinly disguised veneer. The Church doesn't make progress on proclaiming anyone is a saint while the subject person is still alive.
So while he lives, Roberto Clemente or anyone else, is not going to enjoy a privilege that no one, even Padre Pio, could have.
The inanity is ludicrous. Imagine the wedding ceremony, "Do you take Saint Roberto here, to be your husband?"
OH, what if Saint Roberto later wants an annulment but his wife doesn't? Would the Church say, "Well, Mrs. Clemente, you do realize that your husband is a saint, and if the Church were to deny him his request, well, don't you see how that might not be how do we say, making a good impression?"
It just goes to show us that everyone is called to holiness.
Pope Francis, who often laments current persecutions of Christians, has given the Catholic Church 35 new saints, nearly all of them martyrs, from past centuries.
The latest saints were proclaimed Sunday during a Mass celebrated by Francis in St. Peter's Square and attended by some 35,000 faithful, many of them pilgrims from the homelands of those being honored.
Thirty martyrs, including priests and lay persons, suffered anti-Catholic persecution in 1645 at the hands of Dutch Calvinists in Brazil, while three children, ages 12 and 13 who were indigenous persons in Mexico, were martyred in the 1520s for refusing to renounce their Catholic faith and return to their ancient traditions.
The other two new saints are a 20th-century priest from Spain and an Italian priest who died in 1739.
Since becoming pontiff in 2013, Francis has repeatedly paid tribute to Christians suffering or even dying for their faith in current times, especially in the Middle East.
At the end of the canonization ceremony, Francis hailed the new saints as "shining witnesses to the Gospel." In recent decades, the Church has stressed that the latest saints can serve as role models for today's Catholics.
"that Pope Francis officially declared the former Pittsburgh Pirate "blessed."
He is not the pope!
St. Francis De Sales (17th century), Doctor of the Church, The Catholic Controversy, pp. 305-306: "Now when he [the Pope] is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church…"
Pouche, you cannot mix oil with water. You attempt to mix the world with God, generally. It seems that you are very much of the world.
I do like the game of baseball, it is a good momentary distraction from the madness of the world. Koo! koo!, for coco-puffs!
That a baseball player from the playing field could be considered for canonization is an example of how all of us are called to holiness.
This does not sound like a miracle.
There are new physical therapy modalities that can help a paralyzed person to walk again if that person has determination, and it sounded like this person was highly motivated to walk again so he could walk at his wedding.
Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided at the 10/21 beatification Mass in Sagrada Família Basilica. The 109 martyrs were slain during the Spanish Civil War.
The last person hanged for witchcraft in Boston could be considered a Catholic martyr.
In the 1650s, Ann Glover and her family, along with some 50,000 other native Irish people, were enslaved by Englishman Oliver Cromwell during the occupation of Ireland and shipped to the island of Barbados, where they were sold as indentured servants.
What is known of her history is sporadic at best, though she was definitely Irish and definitely Catholic. According to an article in the Boston Globe, even Ann's real name remains a mystery, as indentured servants were often forced to take the names of their masters.
While in Barbados, Ann's husband was reportedly killed for refusing to renounce his Catholic faith. By 1680, Ann and her daughter had moved to Boston where Ann worked as a "goodwife" (a housekeeper and nanny) for the John Goodwin family.
Father Robert O'Grady, director of the Boston Catholic Directory for the Archdiocese of Boston, said that after working for the Goodwins for a few years, Ann Glover became sick, and the illness spread to four of the five Goodwin children.
"She was, unsurprisingly, not well-educated, and in working with the family, apparently she got sick at some point and the kids for whom she was primarily responsible caught whatever it was," Fr. O'Grady told CNA.
A doctor allegedly concluded that "nothing but a hellish Witchcraft could be the origin of these maladies," and one of the daughters confirmed the claim, saying she fell ill after an argument with Ann.
The infamous Reverend Cotton Mather, a Harvard graduate and one of the main perpetrators of witch trial hysteria at the time, insisted Ann Glover was a witch and brought her to what would be the last witch trial in Boston in 1688.
In the courtroom, Ann refused to speak English and instead answered questions in her native Irish Gaelic. In order to prove she was not a witch, Mather asked Ann to recite the Our Father, which she did, in a mix of Irish Gaelic and Latin because of her lack of education.
"Cotton Mather would have recognized some of it, because of course that would have been part of your studies in those days, you studied classical languages when you were preparing to be a minister, especially Latin and Greek," Father O'Grady said.
Allegedly, Boston merchant Robert Calef, who knew Ann when she was alive, said she "was a despised, crazy, poor old woman, an Irish Catholic who was tried for afflicting the Goodwin children. Her behavior at her trial was like that of one distracted. They did her cruel. The proof against her was wholly deficient. The jury brought her guilty. She was hung. She died a Catholic."
The plaque was placed at the Church on the tercentennial anniversary of her death in 1988 by the Order of Alhambra, a Catholic fraternity whose mission includes commemorating Catholic historical persons, places and events. The Boston City Council also declared November 16 as "Goody Glover Day," in order to condemn the injustice brought against her.
Ann Glover has not yet been officially declared a martyr by a pope, nor has her cause for canonization been opened to date, partly because her story has faded into obscurity over time, Fr. O'Grady said.
"Part of the dilemma here (too) is that when she was hanged, Catholics were a tiny, minuscule, minority in Boston, so picking up her 'cause' was not easy or 'on top of the list'," he said.
Ann Glover's trial also set the tone for the infamous Salem Witch Trials in 1692, during which 19 men and women were hanged for witchcraft, and in which Reverend Cotton Mather and his anti-Catholic prejudices played a major role.
Martyred Indian Sister Rani Maria Vattalil, who was slain by an assassin 22 years ago in central India will be officially proclaimed a Blessed at a beatification ceremony at the start of a Holy Mass in Indore, Madhya Pradesh state on Saturday, Nov. 4.
The nun belonging to the Franciscan Clarist Congregation was 41 when Samandar Singh, hired by some landlords, stabbed her inside a bus on February 25, 1995. She was traveling to Indore, the commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh state, on her way to her native state, Kerala, southern India. The attacker followed her when she ran out of the crowded bus and continued stabbing her. She died on the roadside at Nachanbore Hill, near Indore. Her body bore 45 stab wounds. Samandar Singh has repented since then.
Sr. Rani Maria was targetted for empowering the poor and downtrodden from being exploited by money lenders and unscrupulous businessmen.
Beatification is the penultimate stage in a long process in the Catholic Church for a candidate to sainthood or canonization. The cause of Sr. Rani Maria's beatification and canonization began in 2003 and she was declared a Servant of God four years later. A miracle through her intercession will now be needed to clear her for canonization.
To know about the beatification of Sr. Rani Maria, we contacted Bishop Chacko Thottumarikal of Indore, where Italian Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will preside over the Beatification Mass on Saturday. Talking to Vatican Radio on his mobile phone, the Divine Word bishop first explained what the recognition of the martyrdom of Sr. Rani Maria means to local Christians and Catholics as well as to the Indian Church and the nation.
Bishop Chacko regarded Sr. Rani Maria's beatification "a great blessing" for the Catholic Church of India, especially central and north India. He noted that after the canonization of Mother Teresa of Kolkata (Calcutta) in Rome, Saturday's beatification will be the first time such an event is taking place in central and north India. Rani Maria's work for the poor, the downtrodden and the exploited, he said, will be an inspiration for missionaries who work in similar fields amidst opposition.
The Divine Word bishop said 10,000 people are expected at Saturday's beatification in Indore city. The concelebrated Mass with 47 bishops and 5 cardinals will be presided over by Card. Amato. Important people from Indore will also be present at the Mass.
Bishop Chacko explained that the venue of the beatification ceremony has a capacity of 10,000 people. His cathedral could not host the event as it has a capacity of only 1000 people. In the past months the various committees had been working with preparing the venue, invitation, transport, accommodation and food.
Bishop Chacko said that the thanksgiving Mass will take place on Sunday, Nov. 5, in Udainagar, the village where Sr. Rani Maria worked and is buried. Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro will concelebrate the Mass with 12 bishops at the tomb of Sr. Rani Maria, for some 2000 people. The beatification Mass will be streamed live on and some television channels.
- the heroic virtues of Servant of God Teresa Fardella De Blasi, widow and founder of the Institute of the Poor Daughters of the Crowned Virgin; born in New York, United States of America, on 24 May 1867 and died on 26 August 1957 in Trapani, Italy.