Vatican City, Feb 16, 2009 / 12:11 pm
Today the Vatican announced that it will recognize 10 blesseds as saints on February 21 in a ceremony at the Vatican. Among the soon-to-be canonized is Bl. Damian de Veuster, a Belgian missionary who spent much of his life in Hawaii caring for lepers.
The ceremony, which is called a consistory, will take place in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall at 11:00 a.m. on February 21 and will officially recognize as saints 10 blesseds who hail from Portugal to Italy.
In addition to Bl. Damian, Bl. Rafael Arnáiz Barón, is unique because he died at the young age of 27 of a diabetic coma. He was a member of the Cistercian’s of the Strict Observance and is considered on the greatest mystics of the 20th century.
When the Catholic Church canonizes a person, it is a statement by the Church that she believes the person in question lived a saintly life worthy of imitation and that the sainted person is in Heaven.