Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio “Chito” Tagle has been appointed to lead the historic beatification ceremony of Venerable Pauline Marie Jaricot, the last step before canonization to sainthood.
Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Tagle to preside over the beatification rites for Pauline-Marie Jaricot who was declared Venerable by Saint John XXIII on February 25, 1963. The Catholic church leader authorized the publication of the decree recognizing the miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable French woman on May 26, 2020.
The ceremony scheduled to be held on May 22, 2022, in France, marks the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith founded by the Venerable.
The church event is the Filipino cardinal’s first time to lead a beatification ceremony.
Tagle was still in the seminary when the first Filipino saint, San Lorenzo Ruiz, was beatified by Pope John Paul II during his 1981 papal visit to the Philippines. It was the first beatification ceremony to be held outside the Vatican. When San Lorenzo Ruiz was canonized by the same pope in 1987, Tagle was studying in the United States.
Tagle was the parish priest of the Diocese of Imus in Cavite when the second Filipino Saint, San Pedro Calungsod, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2000. He was Archbishop of Manila in the Philippines when San Pedro Calungsod was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila reported on October 21, 2021, the role to be played by the former Archbishop of Manila as announced by the Secretary-General of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) in France, Gaëtan Boucharlat de Chazotte.
Cardinal Tagle left Manila and moved to Rome, Italy to serve in the Vatican in early 2020 after being appointed by the Pope to be the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Tagle, one of the 12 cardinals who were considered a potential pope during the 2013 conclave that chose Pope Francis, is also serving in various other Vatican posts including the Congregation for the Eastern Churches.
Pauline-Marie Jaricot will be beatified where she was born n 1799, in Lyons, France. She passed away in 1862 after living most of her life consecrated to God while serving the poor and the sick and praying for the conversion of sinners and for the evangelization of the world.
The Vatican lists the path to Sainthood as a 4-step process:
- Begins with being called a Servant of God with the initialization of a Cause for Beatification and Canonization.
- Once the person’s Heroic Virtues have been recognized by the Pope, the person becomes a Venerable Servant of God.
- The Venerable Servant of God is declared Blessed in the beatification rite conducted on the authority of the Supreme Pontiff. Blesseds may receive public veneration at the local or regional level, usually restricted to those dioceses or religious institutes closely associated with the person’s life. The Manila Archidiocese explains that beatification is a process guided by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, that begins with an intensive investigation of a deceased person’s life, writings, and virtues and, except in the case of martyrs, proof of one miracle worked by God through the intercession of the person. If the person meets all of the requirements, the pope gives the person the title “Blessed” and decrees that he or she may be honored or venerated.
- By the Rite of Canonization, the Supreme Pontiff elevates a person to the universal veneration of the Church. By canonization, the Pope does not make the person a saint. Rather, he declares that the person is with God and is an example of following Christ worthy of imitation by the faithful. A Mass, Divine Office, and other acts of veneration may now be offered throughout the universal Church.
The Congregation for the Causes of Saints is a Vatican delegation that is responsible for the processes required for beatification and canonization causes and for the preservation of relics of holy people.
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