VATICAN On October 20, canonization of Allamano and the martyrs of Damascus

In today’s ordinary public consistory, scheduled for World Mission Day, the Franciscans and lay people killed in Syria in 1860 will be proclaimed saints, as well as the founder of the Consolata missionaries, priests and nuns also present today in South Korea, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Taiwan.

Vatican City () – Starting October 20, the Sunday on which this year the World Mission Daythe 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 the vote on the canonization causes presided over by Pope Francis. Alongside them, two other nuns will be proclaimed saints on October 20: the Canadian Marie-Léonie Paradis (born Virginie Alodie 1840-1912), founder of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, and the Italian Elena Guerra (1835-1914), founder 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 computing with his devotion to the Eucharist, and who died in 2006 at the age of 15. The consistory’s statement, however, specifies that his canonisation will take place “on a date to be determined” and at this point it seems likely that it could take place at 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 Rafael Massabki, murdered in 1860 in the context of a persecution against Christians – will be a very important moment for the country’s Catholic community. , which has experienced new and very serious suffering in recent years. On the other hand, with regard to the Consolata missionaries founded by Allamano, we must especially remember their presence in Asia, on a frontier of first evangelization like Mongolia. Card Giorgio Marengo, apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, on whom Francis surprisingly conferred the purple in 2022, also visiting the following year the tiny Church in the steppe that the Consolata missionaries minister to. The proclamation of the founder’s holiness will be a special occasion to remind the whole Church to what extent the proclamation of the Gospel ad gentes remains a fundamental commitment in the 21st century.