Vatican City: Pope Francis has advanced the sainthood cause of three Italian nuns who died from the Ebola virus while ministering to patients in Congo.
The pope signed the decrees February 20 during a meeting with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes. The Vatican published the decrees the same day.
The pope recognized the heroic virtues of three members of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Poor: Sister Floralba Rondi, born in the province of Bergamo, Italy, in 1924; Sister Clarangela Ghilardi, born in 1931 also in the province of Bergamo; and Sister Dinarosa Belleri, born in the province of Brescia, Italy, in 1936.
The sisters were nurses and worked at a hospital in Kikwit in then-Zaire when an Ebola virus outbreak hit the city. A total of six Italian nuns were among the more than 250 victims of the outbreak in Kikwit in 1995.
Sister Rondi, who had spent 10 years at a leprosy treatment clinic near Kikwit, was the first to experience signs of an illness she thought was typhoid, and she went for treatment to Mosango, where she died April 25, 1995, at the age of 70.
Sister Ghilardi, who had been living in the country for nearly three decades, died several days later in Kikwit, at the age of 64, followed a week later by Sister Belleri, 58. The sainthood causes for the three other nuns who died in Kikwit in May 1995 are still at their initial stages.
Source: catholicsun.org
Inspiring lives. Sister Floralba Rondi, Sister Clarangela Ghilardi, and Sister Dinarosa Belleri served humanity with dedication and distinction.