Pope Francis proclaimed ten figures of the Church “saints” on Sunday in front of nearly 50,000 faithful from all over the world gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
Among these ten “canonized” are the French monks Marie Rivier, César de Bus and Charles de Foucauld, who had made an exploratory trip to Morocco in 1883, as well as the Dutch priest and journalist Titus Brandsma.
Pope Francis presided over the ceremony alongside some fifty cardinals and some 300 priests and bishops, including the Archbishop of Rabat Cardinal Cristóbal Lopez Romero accompanied by the Apostolic Prefect of Laayoune and the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Tangier , who led a delegation of about twenty people from Morocco.
“Unfortunately, in the world, distances are growing and tensions and wars are increasing,” the pope said, hoping that these new saints could “inspire solutions of unity, paths of dialogue, especially in the heart and the spirit of those who occupy positions of great responsibility and are called to be protagonists of peace and not of war”.
Early on Sunday, groups of pilgrims had begun to flock to the world’s largest basilica, where portraits of the new “saints” hung. The last canonization mass was celebrated in October 2019, a few months before the covid-19 pandemic.
The cathedrals of Tangier and Rabat will organize, respectively on May 22 and 29, ceremonies in tribute to Charles de Foucauld.
The beatification process for Charles de Foucauld, who was assassinated in 1916 in Tamanrasset, in southern Algeria, began in the 1930s. He was declared “blessed” in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI.