“Her life shows well the power of faith in a simple and upright soul, which entrusts itself entirely to the grace of its baptism. She trusts God to the end, and he purifies her through the cross. She prays intensely to Mary and, with her, appears before God in an attitude of adoration and offering,” he said.
The date of Rivier’s canonization has yet to be announced.
With the decree, Pope Francis also approved a miracle attributed to Servant of God Maria Carola Cecchin, an Italian nun who died while serving as a missionary in Kenya in 1925.
Born in 1877 in Padua, Italy, Cecchin also experienced health problems that led her to be turned away from the first religious order that she asked to join at the age of 18.
Cecchin was eventually able to enter the Congregation of the Sisters of Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo in Turin thanks to the advocacy of her parish priest and spiritual director.
After making her religious profession, Cecchin was sent to Kenya as a missionary sister at the age of 28. She would stay in Kenya for 20 years. She died of an illness on a steamship on her return journey to Italy at the age of 48.
With the approval of the miracle attributed to her intercession, Cecchin can now be beatified.
Pope Francis also recognized the heroic virtues of an Italian missionary priest in Uganda, Father Bernardo Sartori (1897-1983); a Spanish priest, Father Andrés Garrido Perales (1663-1728); an Italian Capuchin, Father Carlo Maria da Abbiategrasso (1825-1859); and a Polish religious sister, Sister Maria Małgorzata of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Agony in the Garden (1896-1966).
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.