VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI authorized the publication of a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of an Italian nun and of decrees recognizing that 10 other candidates for sainthood heroically lived the Christian virtues.
The recognition of the miracle in the cause of Immaculate Conception Sister Giuseppina De Micheli clears the way for her beatification. She was born in Milan in 1890 and died in Centonara d’Arto in 1945.
The other decrees approved by the pope April 3 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.
The 10 are:
– Bishop Franz Joseph Rudigier of Linz, Austria, who lived 1811-1884.
– Father Johann Evangelist Wagner, a German priest, 1807-1886.
– Italian Father Innocenzo da Caltagirone Marcinno, a former minister general of the Capuchin order, 1589-1655.
– Sister Teresa Alvarez Calderon, the Peruvian founder of a religious order, 1875-1953.
– 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.
– Sister Marie de la Ferre, the French co-founder of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph, who was born about 1589 and died in 1652.
– Sister Felisa Perez de Iriarte Casado, a Spanish Dominican, 1904-1954.
– Brazilian Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes, a member of the Immaculate Conception Missionaries, 1914-1992.
– Giacomo Gaglione, an Italian layman paralyzed in his teens who went on to found the Apostolate of the Suffering; he was born in 1896 and died in 1962.
– Benoite Rencurel, a laywoman who claimed to have seen Mary beginning in 1664 and continuing over the course of 50 years in Laus, France; in 2008 the local bishop formally recognized the apparitions of the visionary, who lived 1647-1718.