The five first canonizations by Benedict XVI
On Sunday, October 23, pope Benedict XVI had "for the first time, the joy of presiding over the rite of canonization and of proclaiming five new saints" in the Basilica of Saint Peter. The Mass concelebrated with the Fathers of the Synod closed the Eucharistic year which was opened in Rome by John-Paul II on October 17, 2004. It was World Missions Day, and also the end of the Bishops’ Synod.
The five canonized saints were Zygmunt Gorazdowski and Jozef Bilczewski, Ukrainians of Polish origin, Gaetano Catanoso and Felice da Nicosia, Italians and Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, from Chile.
Zygmunt Gorazdowski (1845-1920), a priest of the archdiocese of Lviv of the Latins in the Ukraine, founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph for the service of the poor and the sick. Jozef Bilczewski (1860-1923) was archbishop of the Latin rite Catholics in Ukraine and was appointed rector of the university of Lviv in 1900.
In 1935, the Italian Calabrian priest Gaetano Catanoso (1879-1963) founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Veronica of the Holy Face, devoted to teaching, prayer and helping the poor. Felice da Nicosia (1715-1787) took the name of Felix when he entered the Order of Friars minor Capuchin. Born on November 5, 1715 in Nicosia, in Sicily, under the name of Giacomo Amoroso, he begged for his community for 40 years and had a great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Enjoying the gift of bilocation and of physical and spiritual healing, he intervened during a plague epidemic in 1577.
The Chilean Jesuit Father Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga (1901-1952), national chaplain of the "Youth Catholic Action", devoted himself to teaching and to the apostolate of the poor and young people.
