In a May 20 audience with the prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Pope Francis approved the decree on the martyrdom of Father Giuseppe Beotti, thus paving the way for his beatification. The Italian priest was slain by Nazis in 1944.
The Pope also decrees on the heroic virtues of two priests (from Cameroon and Spain), two religious sisters (from Brazil and Italy), and four lay people (also from Brazil and Italy). Father Simon Mpeke, Father Pedro de la Virgen del Carmen, Sister Tereza Margarida do Coração de Maria, Sister Edda Roda, Guido Vidal França Schäffer (a seminarian), Arnaldo Canepa (a catechist), Maria Cristina Ogier (a teen cancer victim), and Lorena D’Alessandro (another teen cancer victim) may now be honored with the title of venerable.