Pope Francis canonised Swedish nun Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad and Polish monk Stanislaus Papczynski on Sunday in a ceremony attended by thousands.
Hesselblad saved the lives of Jewish families fleeing the Nazis by hiding them in a convent in Rome where she was superior from 1943 to 1944.
Papczynski supported hospitals and shelters for the poor, and cared for the sick in seventeenth century Poland. He also founded the first men's religious order dedicated to the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception.
The Pope addressed thousands of pilgrims gathered for the canonisation Mass in St Peter’s Square, saying the two Saints were “deeply united to the passion of Jesus, and in them the power of his Resurrection was revealed”. They are the first Catholics to be proclaimed Saints during the Jubilee of Mercy.
“The Church today offers us two of her children who are exemplary witnesses to this mystery of Resurrection,” the Pope continued. “Both can sing forever in the words of the Psalmist: ‘You have changed my mourning into dancing, O Lord, my God, I will thank you forever’.”
Sr Mary Elizabeth, a Lutheran who converted to Catholicism, is only the second Swede to become a saint, following Saint Bridget, who was canonised in 1391. In 2004 she was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations, an award given to non-Jews who helped Jews during the Holocaust.
Her canonisation comes ahead of Francis’s scheduled trip to Sweden later this year to mark the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation.
The Pope met with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and Sweden’s Culture Minister Alice Bah Kuhnke ahead of the service.
The Saints are not supermen, nor were they born perfect. When they recognized God’s love, they followed it and served others.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) June 5, 2016
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