Kochi, India, Feb 6, 2020 / 13:59 pm
The cause for beatification of Father Varkey Kattarath, founder of the Vincentian Congregation, was opened Wednesday at a ceremony in India.
Fr. Kattarath founded the congregation, modeled on St. Vincent de Paul's Congregation of the Mission, in 1904. The community's charism is evangelization, particularly of the poor.
He was declared a Servant of God Feb. 5 at the headquarters of the Vincentian Congregation in Kochi. The cause was requested by the congregation, which is based in the Syro-Malabar Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly.
Fr. Kattarath, born in 1851, was serving as a parish priest when he learned that his bishop wanted to start a community like the Congregation of the Mission. The bishop had visited the congregation's mother house in Paris in 1895, and he returned to Ernakulam with a copy of its rule.