Sainthood

Is sainthood possible for the late Father Patrick Peyton, the "rosary priest" remembered for the slogan: "The family that prays together, stays together"? The Family Rosary, based in Albany, N.Y., and Family Theater Productions in Hollywood, two groups founded by the priest from the Holy Cross religious order, have sent letters to 50,000 people on their mailing lists, asking if they favor launching a campaign for beatification and sainthood by the Vatican.

A Vatican department has given the initial green light for Msgr. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the Spanish founder of the controversial Roman Catholic group Opus Dei, to be declared a saint by Pope John Paul II, sources said. The Vatican sources said the Congregation for the Causes of Saints also approved the sainthood cause of Padre Pio, an internationally famous mystic Italian monk who died in 1968.

Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who spent much of her life caring for the poor of Calcutta, moved a step closer to sainthood Friday when Pope John Paul II recognized a reported miracle credited to her intercession. Mother Teresa will be beatified in a ceremony scheduled for Oct. 19 in Rome, her order said. Mother Teresa died in 1997 at age 87. A second miracle is required for sainthood.

Mary Virginia Merrick, who founded the Bethesda-based Christ Child Society to help needy and emotionally disturbed children, is the first person nominated for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. Merrick, who died in 1955 at the age of 89, founded the society in 1887 and in 1913 added a pioneering outreach to black children. The society, now with 7,000 volunteers in 35 chapters, runs summer camps and helps children with health care, housing and clothing.

The cause of sainthood for Pope John XXIII has cleared a major hurdle with certification by a panel of doctors that his intercession miraculously cured a dying nun, the Vatican has announced. The Rev. Luca de Rosa, a Franciscan priest who is postulator, or advocate, of John XXIII's cause, said the medical consultants to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints voted unanimously that the nun's recovery was "inexplicable at the scientific level."

Mother Teresa reportedly passed her first major milestone on the road to sainthood in record time this week when the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved her "heroic virtues." The Italian news agency ANSA said the congregation will meet again Oct. 1 to consider a miraculous cure attributed to her intervention. Proof of a miracle would qualify her for beatification, the step just before sainthood.

A two-year inquiry into the miracles needed to declare Mother Teresa a saint will be completed by Aug. 15, Calcutta's Roman Catholic Archbishop Henry D'Souza announced. The Vatican normally spends two or three years examining submitted evidence, "but for Mother Teresa the Vatican may take less time," he said. Mother Teresa, hailed as a "living saint" during her decades in Calcutta's slums, died in 1997 at age 87.

Pope John Paul II added the first Chinese to the roll of saints Sunday, declaring 120 Chinese Catholics and foreign missionaries to be martyrs in the church's 5-century-long--and ongoing--struggle in China. China's state-run church bitterly protested the canonization of the 87 Chinese and 33 foreign missionaries as a "public humiliation." The canonization fell on China's National Day celebrating the 51st anniversary of Communist rule.

Dorothy Day, an American social activist who devoted her life to serving the poor and was a founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, may become a saint. The Vatican has authorized the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York to open the cause for her beatification and canonization, Cardinal John J. O'Connor announced this week. Day, who died Nov. 29, 1980, in New York at 83, might have been unsettled by the turn of events.

From the sidelines, Father Eric O'Brien watches in anonymity as the effort to win sainthood for Junipero Serra--a cause he championed nearly 50 years ago--approaches a decisive moment. Serra, known as "the Apostle of California," founded the first nine of California's 22 Catholic missions between 1769 and 1784, including Mission San Diego de Alcala. O'Brien, one of Serra's unsung servants, said earlier this week that he does not know whether his health will permit him to be in Monterey on Sept.