Vatican City — VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV has been canonized Venezuela The beloved “Doctor of the Poor” appeared on Sunday in front of tens of thousands of people, offering the South American nation its first saint and a reason to celebrate amid a years-long economic crisis and new tensions with the United States.
Jose Gregorio HernandezRevered by millions for his dedication to the poor, he was declared a saint, along with the founder of the Venezuelan religious order, Mother Carmen Rendelez Martinez, at a Mass in St. Peter’s Square that Leo described as “a great celebration of holiness.”
Thousands of jubilant Venezuelans filled the plaza and draped Venezuelan flags over police barricades, adding splashes of red, blue and yellow that perfectly matched the uniforms of the Swiss Guards present.
Thousands more who could not travel to Rome gathered overnight in Caracas Square outside the Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria church, where the 26-foot (8-meter) statue of Hernandez stands, and watched the Mass from Rome on a giant screen.
“It’s good news after all this sadness,” said Ana Sanabria, a 71-year-old housewife, as she watched fireworks in Caracas.
The Mass, which the Vatican said attracted about 70,000 people, also dedicated Papua New Guinea to its first saint: Peter Tu Root, a layman who was killed in prison in 1945 for advocating monogamy at a time when polygamy was practiced. In all, seven people were canonized in a ceremony initiated by Pope Francis in some of his final acts as pope.
In reality, Francis agreed to canonize Hernandez From his hospital room on February 24, he agreed to bypass the Vatican’s typical miracle confirmation process to declare him a saint on the basis of “widespread veneration of the ‘holy doctor’ among the faithful,” the Vatican said.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro thanked Francis for his intervention, after years of petitions from lay faithful and the Venezuelan Catholic hierarchy.
“Today we offered a prayer for the eternal soul of the one who will become a saint, and also for Pope Francis, who gave this beautiful gift to Venezuela,” he said in Caracas after the Mass.
Hernandez is beloved among Venezuelans, plastering his face on street art throughout Caracas, in hospital portraits, and in photographs decorating the altars of individual homes.
As a physician in Caracas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he refused to take money from the poor for his services and often gave them money for medicine, earning him the nickname “Doctor of the Poor.” He was killed in a road accident in 1919 while crossing the street shortly after obtaining some medicine from a pharmacy to bring to a poor old woman.
He became a religious icon after his death, and when Pope John Paul II visited Venezuela in 1996, he received a petition signed by five million people – roughly one in four Venezuelans – asking him to declare Hernandez a saint.
“For them, this is already a national event of the highest level,” said Silvia Correale, who led the cause of his sainthood. “The canonization of José Gregorio is certainly desired by all the Venezuelan people, and has been awaited by all the people.”
Jose Ramon Malavicontreras, a Venezuelan resident of Rome, said his mother named him Hernandez.
“They thought I would be stillborn, so they gave me his name to save my life,” he said Sunday in St. Peter’s Basilica. “So, this was an unmissable moment for me. I couldn’t fail to be here.”
In Caracas, Arquimedes Blanco, 60, said he was not particularly impressed with Hernandez but understood the importance of his canonization for Venezuela now. Blanco belongs to a cultural group charged with painting streets before canonization.
“I may not be the biggest fan of José Gregorio, but I understand that he is Venezuelan and that canonizing him in the context of the whole geopolitical situation is important,” he said.
The canonization was a long-awaited celebration and support for Venezuela, just weeks after the Venezuelan opposition leader announced… Maria Corina Machado beat Nobel Peace Prize. This comes with escalating tensions with the United States over Washington’s use of military force against suspected drug gangs.
Just last week, US President Donald Trump confirmed that… Authorized by the CIA To conduct secret operations inside Venezuela, he said that he was considering carrying out ground operations in the South American country.
Venezuela’s economy has been suffering from a crisis over the past decade, which has been exacerbated by US sanctions and has stimulated the migration of millions of Venezuelans, first to other countries in South America, then to the United States in recent years.
Maduro’s government – which was sworn in last year despite credible evidence that he lost re-election – has been forced to cut subsidies, leaving many daily necessities unaffordable for the 80% of the population who are estimated to live in poverty.
In his sermon, Leo held up all seven recent saints as models for today’s Catholics who carry the “torch of faith.”
He said: “May their intercession help us in our trials, and may their example inspire us in our common call to holiness.”
Also beatified on Sunday were Archbishop Ignazio Shukrallah Maloyan, an Armenian Catholic who was murdered for refusing to renounce his faith during what the Vatican called the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide; Sister Vincenza Maria Boulogne, founder of a religious order in the 19th century; Sister Maria Troncati, an Italian missionary in Ecuador; and Bartolo Longo, who, like Hernandez, was canonized on the basis of widespread veneration among the faithful, rather than on the basis of alleged miraculous healings.
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Rueda contributed from Caracas, Venezuela. Juan Arraez in Caracas and Luigi Navarra, Silvia Stellaci and Maria Cellini Clemente in Vatican City contributed to this report.
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