Pope gives Venezuela reason to celebrate by canonising first saint

The Pope canonised Venezuela’s beloved “doctor of the poor” on Sunday before tens of thousands of people, offering the South American nation its first saint and a reason to celebrate amid a years-long economic crisis and new tensions with the United States.

Jose Gregorio Hernandez, revered by millions for his dedication to poor people, was declared a saint alongside Mother Carmen Rendiles Martinez, the founder of a Venezuelan religious order, at a Mass in St Peter’s Square that Pope Leo called a “great celebration of holiness”.

Thousands of jubilant Venezuelans filled the square and draped Venezuelan flags on its police barricades, adding splashes of red, blue and yellow that perfectly matched the uniforms of the attending Swiss Guards.

Thousands more who could not travel to Rome marked the occasion in Caracas, where the Vatican service was livestreamed before dawn at a city centre plaza.

The Mass, which the Vatican said drew some 70,000 people, also gave Papua New Guinea its first saint: Peter To Rot, a layman killed in prison in 1945 for standing up for monogamous marriage at a time when polygamy was practiced.

In all, seven people were canonised in a ceremony that Pope Francis put in motion in some of his final acts as pope.

In fact, Francis approved Dr Hernandez’s canonisation from his hospital room on February 24, agreeing to bypass the Vatican’s typical miracle confirmation process and pronounce him a saint based on the “widespread veneration of the ‘doctor-saint’ among the faithful”, the Vatican said.

Dr Hernandez is beloved among Venezuelans, with his face plastered on street art around Caracas, in portraits in hospitals and in photos on individual home altars.

As a doctor in Caracas during the late 1800s and early 1900s, he refused to take money from poor people for his services and often gave them money for medicine, earning the nickname “doctor of the poor”.

He was killed in 1919 while crossing a street shortly after picking up some medicine at a pharmacy to bring to a poor elderly woman.

He became a religious icon after his death, and when Pope John Paul II visited Venezuela in February 1996, he received a petition signed by five million people — almost one in four Venezuelans — asking that he declare Dr Hernandez a saint.

“For them, this is indeed a national event of the highest order,” Silvia Correale, who spearheaded his sainthood case, said.

“Certainly, the canonisation of Jose Gregorio is desired by all the Venezuelan people, and has been waited for by all the people.”

The canonisation is a long-awaited celebration and a boost for Venezuela, just weeks after Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize. It comes as tensions mount with the US over Washington’s use of military force against suspected drug cartels.

In the past week, US President Donald Trump confirmed that he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela and said he was weighing the execution of land operations in the South American country.

Venezuela’s economy has been in crisis for the past decade, spurring the emigration of millions of Venezuelans, first to other South American nations and then, in more recent years, to the US.

The country’s economic disaster has been compounded by US sanctions.

The government of President Nicolas Maduro – sworn in last year despite credible evidence he lost re-election — has been forced to cut subsidies, making many daily necessities unaffordable to the 80% of residents estimated to live in poverty.

Also being canonised on Sunday are Archbishop Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, an Armenian Catholic who was killed for refusing to renounce his faith during what the Vatican has said was the Ottoman-era genocide of Armenians; Sister Vincenza Maria Poloni, a 19th century founder of a religious order; Maria Troncatti, an Italian missionary in Ecuador, and Bartolo Longo, who like Dr Hernandez, will be canonised based on widespread veneration among the faithful, rather than a purported miraculous healing.