Doctor becomes Venezuela's first saint

Pope Leo XIV canonized Venezuela’s beloved “doctor of the poor” 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 a rising U.S. military threat.

- By NICOLE WINFIELD AND JORGE RUEDA

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

Thousands of jubilant Venezuelans filled the square and draped Venezuelan flags on its police barricades.

Thousands more who couldn’t travel to Rome gathered overnight in the Caracas plaza outside the Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria church, where a 26foot statue of Hernández stands, and watched the Mass from Rome on a giant screen.

“It’s good news after so much sadness,” said Ana Sanabria, a 71-year-old homemaker, as she watched the fireworks in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.

The Mass, which the Vatican said drew about 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 canonized in a ceremony that Pope Francis put in motion in some of his final acts as pontiff,

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