JOHN PAUL II BEATIFIES SIX SERVANTS OF GOD

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 15, 2002 (VIS) - At 10 a.m. today, the third Sunday of Easter, the Pope celebrated the Eucharist in St. Peter's Square, and beatified the following Servants of God: Gaetano Errico (1791-1860); Lodovico Pavoni (1784-1849); Luigi Variara (1875-1923); Maria del Transito de Jesus Sacramentado (1821-1885); Artemide Zatti (1880-1951); Maria Romero Meneses (1902-1977).

The Holy Father spoke about each one of the new Blesseds. Of Gaetano Errico, priest and founder of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, he said: "In an era marked by great political and social changes, in the face of the spiritual rigor of the Jansenists, he proclaimed the greatness of the mercy of God." He was "truly a martyr of the confessional," in which he used to spend entire days.

"Endowed with an especially sensitive soul," Blessed Lodovico Pavoni, priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sons of Mary Immaculate, "committed himself with all his strength to helping poor and abandoned young people, and especially deaf-mutes. He worked in various fields, from education to publishing, with original apostolic institutions to brave innovative activities."

John Paul II recalled that Blessed Luigi Variara, priest of the Society of St. Francis de Sales, went to Colombia from Italy. "From the first moment, he dedicated his youthful energy and the richness of his gifts, to the service of lepers." He founded a group of young consecrated women, "some of whom were even lepers or daughters of lepers," who would become the Congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

"Artemide Zatti, a Salesian coadjutor, left his family from the diocese of Reggio Emilia in search of a better life in Argentina, where he discovered his vocation to the Salesians, which took shape as a passionate service, competent and full of love, to the sick."

The Pope said that the Nicaraguan nun, Maria Romero Meneses of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, "received her formation for the religious life in El Salvador and spent the majority of her life in Costa Rica. ... With a passionate love for God and unlimited trust in the help of the Virgin Mary, she was an exemplary religious, apostle and mother of the poor, who, without excluding anyone, were her favorites."

Mother Maria del Transito de Jesus Sacramentado Villegas, foundress of the Franciscan Missionary Tertiary Sisters, is the "first Argentinian woman who achieved the honor of the altars. ... She sought intimacy with Christ in the contemplative life. She did not give up when, because of illness, she had to abandon the monasteries she was in, rather she continued with trust and abandon in the will of God, which she continued to seek incessantly."

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