Vatican City (AsiaNews) - As of 20 October next, the Sunday on which World Mission Sunday falls this year, the Catholic Church will have 14 new saints, including the martyrs of Damascus and the Italian priest Giuseppe Allamano (1851-1926), founder of the Consolata missionaries, religious institutes that also carry out their ministry in Asia.
The announcement of the date was made today in the Vatican during the public consistory for voting on causes for canonisation presided over by Pope Francis.
Together with them, two other religious women will be proclaimed saints on 20 October: the Canadian Marie-Léonie Paradis (born Virginie Alodie 1840-1912), foundress of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, and the Italian Elena Guerra (1835-1914), foundress of the Congregation of the Oblates of the Holy Spirit.
The consistory also officially approved the canonisation of Carlo Acutis, a young Italian of our time, who combined his passion for information technology with his devotion to the Eucharist, who died in 2006 at the age of 15. However, the consistory communiqué specifies that his canonisation will take place "at a date to be determined" and at this point it seems likely that it could take place in one of the jubilee celebrations of the Holy Year of 2025.
The proclamation of the sanctity of the martyrs of Damascus - eight Franciscan friars and the three Syrian laymen Francis, Mooti and Raphael Massabki, killed in 1860 as part of a persecution against Christians - will represent a very important moment for the Catholic community of the country, which has experienced new and very serious sufferings in recent years.
On the other hand, with regard to the Consolata missionaries founded by Allamano, their presence in Asia in a frontier of first evangelisation such as Mongolia should be remembered in particular. Card. Giorgio Marengo, the apostolic prefect of Ulan Bator, on whom Francis surprisingly conferred the purple in 2022, also visiting the following year the tiny Church in the steppe that the Consolata missionaries serve with their ministry.
The proclamation of the holiness of the founder will be a special occasion to remind the entire Church how much the proclamation of the Gospel ad gentes still remains a fundamental commitment in the 21st century.
