By Charles Igwe
The Vatican announced on Monday that Pope Francis will preside over a Mass of canonization for 14 individuals, including the 11 “Martyrs of Damascus,” on Sunday, October 20, 2024. This significant event will occur during the 2024 assembly of the Synod on Synodality.
The date was confirmed following the College of Cardinals’ approval of the canonizations of 15 people during a consistory on the morning of July 1. However, the date for the highly anticipated canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis will be determined at a later time.
The “Martyrs of Damascus” were killed “out of hatred for the faith” in Damascus, Syria, on the night of July 9-10, 1860, during a persecution of Christians by Shia Druze that began in Lebanon and spread to Syria, resulting in thousands of deaths. A Druze commando attacked a Franciscan convent in Damascus’ Christian quarter of Bab-Touma, murdering friars Manuel Ruiz López, Carmelo Bolta, Nicanor Ascanio, Nicolás M. Alberca y Torres, Pedro Soler, Engelbert Kolland, Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, Juan S. Fernández, and three laymen who were biological brothers: Francis, Abdel Mohti, and Raphaël Massabki. The 11 were brutally killed after refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam. They were beatified in 1926.
Among those to be canonized on October 20 is Blessed Elena Guerra, known as “an apostle of the Holy Spirit.” Born in 1835, she was a friend of Pope Leo XIII and the teacher of St. Gemma Galgani. Guerra is recognized for her spiritual writings and devotion to the Holy Spirit.
Canadian Blessed Marie-Léonie Paradis, founder of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, will also be declared a saint. Born Virginie Alodie on May 12, 1840, in L’Acadie, Quebec, she founded her institute in 1880 in New Brunswick to support the religious of Holy Cross in educational work. Today, her sisters work in over 200 institutions across Canada, the United States, Italy, Brazil, Haiti, Chile, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Italian Blessed Giuseppe Allamano, another to be canonized on October 20, founded the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters. Born in 1851, Allamano was influenced by the spirituality of the Salesians and St. John Bosco, as well as by his uncle, St. Joseph Cafasso, a noted priest and spiritual director known as one of Turin’s “social saints.”
