On Sunday, October 14th, 2018, Pope Paul VI was canonized in Rome, along with Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, who was martyred while saying Mass. Two of our foundresses were present in St. Peter’s square for this historic event.
Pope Paul VI is perhaps best known for his courage in affirming the Church’s traditional teaching against the use of artificial birth control in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), which was promulgated fifty years ago. Like Archbishop Romero, Pope Paul was also a tireless promoter of social justice and world peace. These two facets of Pope Paul VI’s pontificate are not opposed in any way; they are simply two ways of affirming the dignity of all human life.
In God’s plan, every human person is conceived in love and welcomed by caring parents into an intimate communion of persons–a family who accepts him as he is and learns to love and be loved. How beautiful, how marvelous, is God’s design! Upholding God’s plan for the family strengthens the most basic unit of society and so promotes social justice and leads to peace. Through their work in Catholic education throughout the nation, our Sisters strive to support families while proclaiming the beauty of God’s plan in all its fullness.
By stepping out in faith to form a new religious community twenty-one years ago, and continuing to open their doors to so many young vocations, even when it seems impossible to provide for their housing and educational needs, our foundresses have born unique testimony to the dignity of each life and each vocation. Joining in prayer with the whole Church, they took your intentions and those of all our benefactors and families with them to Rome, and entrusted them to the powerful intercession of these two newest saints of the Church. Pope Paul VI and Oscar Romero, pray for us!
