COLOMBO, (Reuters) – Pope Francis will give Sri Lanka its first Catholic saint today, ending a 300-year campaign to recognise the sanctity of an Indian-born missionary who was captured as a suspected spy after he crept into the tropical island in disguise.
Joseph Vaz was born in 1651 in India’s Goa, then a Portuguese colony. He travelled south at the age of 36, dressed as a poor labourer, to a country then known as Ceylon after hearing about the persecution of Catholics by the Dutch.
“He revived the faith of our people,” said Sri Lanka’s Bishop Raymond Wickramasinghe of Galle.
The canonisation is an example of Francis’s no-nonsense approach to creating saints to meet the demands of the flock for new holy figures. Some say Vaz does not technically qualify because the Church has not attributed two miracles to him.
The ceremony will take place in a park on the Colombo seafront, where crowds of faithful began gathering late yesterday to witness one of the headline events of the Pope’s two-day visit.
On Monday, Francis called on Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka to uncover the truth about its long civil war between mainly Hindu Tamils and the mostly Buddhist Sinhalese and bring religious communities closer together.
He moves on to the Philippines tomorrow as part of a week-long tour, his second trip to Asia, to shore up the Church’s presence in developing nations.