Pope Francis created a new group of saints on Sunday, canonizing 14 people, including the “martyrs of Damascus,” murdered in Syria during the Ottoman Empire and symbols of Christian persecution.
Francis presided over the canonization ceremony in St. Peter’s Square in the presence of thousands of Catholic faithful from around the world. “We inscribe them among the saints, decreeing that they be venerated as such by the entire Church,” Francis proclaimed, after reciting each name.
Canonization is the last step towards sainthood in the Catholic Church, after beatification. Three conditions are required, the most important of which is that the person has performed at least two miracles. He must have died at least five years ago and have led an exemplary Christian life.
The group includes 11 people known as the “martyrs of Damascus,” who have become saints some 160 years after their deaths. The seven Spanish Franciscan friars and three Maronite laymen – all brothers – from a monastery were murdered by Druze militants in July 1860 in the Syrian capital, then under Ottoman rule. They were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1926.
Damascus is home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, but its Christian population has declined to just two percent today, according to the Vatican. Many citizens, Christian or not, have left the city since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
The martyrdom of the Damascus group canonized on Sunday “is not very different from the situation of many Christians in the Middle East today,” wrote Vatican News, the official Vatican news portal.
The other three people, who died at the beginning of the 20th century, founded religious communities. They are the Italian missionary Giuseppe Allamano, the Italian nun Elena Guerra and the Canadian Marie-Leonie Paradis.
In May, Pope Francis announced that he would canonize Italian teenager Carlos Acutis. The London-born teenager spent his life spreading his faith online, earning the nickname “God Influencer,” before dying of leukemia in 2006.
The date of the canonization has not yet been set, but it could take place in 2025, the year of the Church’s Jubilee, when more than 30 million pilgrims are expected to flock to Rome.
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