VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI advanced the sainthood causes of 27 candidates, including 14 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War, an Austrian priest who died in a Nazi death camp, and a Jewish wife and mother who converted to Catholicism and founded a religious congregation.
During a meeting June 27 with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, the pope signed a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of Hildegard Burjan – a German mother of one, born in 1883 who founded the Society of Sisters of Caritas Socialis.
The recognition of the miracle clears the way for her beatification. She died in Vienna in 1933.
Pope Benedict also signed decrees that pave the way for several other beatifications, including:
– Spanish Bishop Salvio Huix Miralpeix of Lleida, who was martyred in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.
– 13 sisters of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul who were martyred in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.
– Father Carl Lampert, born in Austria in 1894 and martyred in Germany’s Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944.
– Sister Manuela de Jesus Arias Espinosa, the Mexican founder of the Poor Clare Missionary Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and of the Missionaries of Christ for the Universal Church; she was born in Mexico in 1904 and died in Rome in 1981.
– Father Mariano Arciero, an 18th-century Italian diocesan priest.
– French Dominican Father John Joseph Lataste, founder of the Bethany community.
Eight other decrees approved by the pope June 27 signify that the church recognizes that the men and women lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way and that they are venerable. Recognition of a miracle attributed to each candidate’s intercession is needed for that person’s beatification.