This post has been very very late, but I think its worth posting since I don’t want to clog my blog with pending post due to my very busy schedule. From the New York Times: Benedict Canonizes 5 new saints – Pope Benedict XVI canonized five new saints on Sunday, including a 19th-century Belgian priest who worked with lepers in Hawaii. In his homily, Benedict urged the faithful to learn from “the luminous examples of these saints,” men and women who “did not put themselves at the center but chose to go against the current and live according to the Gospel.” A large delegation from Hawaii attended the ceremony, including a Hawaii resident who recovered from cancer after praying to the Belgian-born priest, Jozef De Veuster, known as Father Damien. The Vatican deemed her recovery a miracle. Father Damien died of leprosy in 1889 after years tending to the sick on the island of Molokai.

President Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Hawaii, praised Father Damien, saying he recalled “many stories from my youth” about him. “In our own time, as millions around the world suffer from disease, especially the pandemic of H.I.V./AIDS, we should draw on the example of Father Damien’s resolve in answering the urgent call to heal and care for the sick,” the president said in a statement. The delegation to the ceremony included King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium; Washington’s new ambassador to the Vatican, Miguel H. Diaz; and Senator Daniel K. Akaka of Hawaii. After the ceremony, Benedict urged the faithful to pray and help “all those engaged with generosity in the fight against leprosy and against other forms of leprosy caused by lack of love, ignorance and cowardliness.” The other new saints include Zygmunt Szcezesny Felinski, a 19th-century archbishop of Warsaw who helped defend the Catholic Church during Poland’s annexation by Russia, and Jeanne Jugan, a French nun who helped found the Little Sisters of the Poor, which runs homes for the elderly. Benedict also canonized two Spaniards: Francisco Coll y Guitart, who founded an order of Dominicans in the 19th century, and Rafael Arnáiz Barón, who renounced his rich upbringing to dedicate himself to prayer.

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