Indian lay martyr among ten canonized by Pope

By Matters India Reporter

Vatican City, May 15, 2022: Devasahayam, the first lay martyr from India, was among ten people Pope Francis canonized on May 15 at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

Among the new saint are an anti-Nazi Dutch priest murdered in the Dachau concentration camp and a French hermit assassinated in Algeria.

It was the first canonization after the Pope Francis declared John Henry Newman and four others as saints in October 2019.

Pope Francis, who has been using a wheelchair due to knee and leg pain, was driven to the altar at the start of the ceremony, which was attended by more than 50,000 people.

The Pope went to his chair behind the altar but stood briefly to greet some participants.

He read out the homily sitting in his chair.

During the Mass, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints read short biographies of each new saint.

Pope Francis recited the formula of canonization after the singing of the litany of saints.

Among those present in St. Peter’s Square were Italian President Sergio Mattarella, French Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin, Dutch Minister of the Exterior Wopke Hoekstra, Indian Minister of Minorities Gingee K. S. Mathan, and Algerian President of the High Islamic Committee Bouabdellah Ghoulamallah.

Pope Francis has once again called for peace during the Angelus prayer after the canonization Mass.

“It is good to see that, through their evangelical witness, these saints have fostered the spiritual and social growth of their respective nations and also of the entire human family,” the Pope said. At the same time, he decried the many wars afflicting the world today and called on leaders to take responsibility.

“Sadly in the world distances grow and tensions and wars increase,” the Pope said, expressing hope that the new saints may inspire solutions “of togetherness and ways of dialogue.”

The new saints is Devasahayam, who was tortured and martyred after he converted to Catholicism in the 18th century. He suffered martyrdom in 1752, in what is southern India’s Tamil Nadu state

Born on April 23, 1712, as Neelakanda Pillai, in the village of Nattalam, Devasahayam served in the palace of southern India’s Hindu kingdom of Travancore, which stretched from what is Tamil Nadu’s Kanniyakumari district, right up to Kochi in Kerala state.

At baptism in 1745, he assumed the name ‘Lazarus’ or ‘Devasahayam’ in the local language, meaning ‘God is my help.’ However, his conversion did not go well with the leaders of his native religion. False charges of treason and espionage were brought against him and he was divested of his post in the royal administration. He was imprisoned and subjected to harsh persecution. A Catholic for only seven years, he was shot dead in the Aralvaimozhy forest on January 14, 1752. He was 39 at the time of his death.

Another martyr said is Titus Brandsma, a member of the Carmelite religious order who served as president of the Catholic university at Nijmegen. He spoke out against anti-Jewish laws of the Nazi government and denounced Nazi ideology even before Second World War and the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940.

During the Nazi occupation, he urged Dutch Catholic newspapers not to print Nazi propaganda. He was arrested in 1942 and held in Dutch jails before being taken to Dachau, near Munich, where he was subjected to biological experimentation and killed by lethal injection the same year. He was 61 then. He was declared a martyr for dying because of “in hatred of the faith”.

Father Charles de Foucauld, a 19th century French nobleman, soldier, explorer, and geographer who became a priest after experiencing personal conversion. He lived as a hermit among the poor Berbers in North Africa. He published the first Tuareg-French dictionary and translated Tuareg poems into French. De Foucauld was killed during a kidnapping attempt by Bedouin tribal raiders in Algeria in 1916.

Other new saints:

Cesar de Bus, a French Catholic priest who founded two religious congregations in the 16th century. He was a zealous preacher and catechist, who performed many works of charity.

Marie Rivier, a Frenchwoman who founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Presentation in 1796, at the age of 28, during the Reign of Terror.

Maria Domenica Mantovani, the first general superior of the Institute of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, which she co-founded to serve the poor, orphaned, and the sick in Italy in 1892.

Maria Francesca of Jesus, a 19th-century missionary founder, crossed the Atlantic Ocean seven times by boat to establish an order of Capuchin sisters in Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil.

Luigi Maria Palazzolo, an Italian priest known for having established the Sisters of the Poor, opened an orphanage, and worked for the poor.

Giustino Maria Russolillo, founded the religious congregations of the Vocationist Fathers, the Vocationist Sisters and of the Secular Institute of the Apostles of Universal Sanctification in Italy. The priest was devoted to educating young people and cultivating their vocations.