Harare, Zimbabwe, Sep 6, 2019 / 16:01 pm
On Thursday the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe began a three-day meeting to consider the cause of canonization of John Bradburne, a lay missionary to the area in the 1970s, who could become the country's first canonized saint.
At the Sept. 5-7 meeting, Catholic leaders will hear arguments in favor of and against the sainthood cause of Bradburne, who was killed during the Rhodesian Bush War in 1979.
The meeting began on the 40th anniversary of Bradburne's death and will determine whether his cause for official sainthood can proceed.
Bradburne was born in 1921 in England, the son of an Anglican clergyman. He served in the British army in World War II, and he converted to Catholicism in 1947 after staying with the Benedictines of Buckfast Abbey.