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Registration date : 2008-06-10
 |  Subject: India's Christians celebrate first woman saint.............  Sun Oct 12, 2008 2:53 pm | |
|  Church bells rang in Kerala and firecrackers went off on Sunday as Pope Benedict elevated the country's first woman to sainthood, more than sixty years after her death.
Thousands of Christians packed into a small church and a school auditorium in the town of Bharananganam, where Sister Alphonsa had lived as a Roman Catholic nun, to watch the canonisation ceremony broadcast live from the Vatican.
"At a time when evil is so widespread, it is good to have something like this to keep our spirits up," said Sister Grace Kalriparambil, 77, who knew Alphonsa.
Alphonsa is credited with curing illness and disease after her death in 1946, with the Vatican approving the reported miracle cure of Genil Joseph, a congenitally deformed child, in 1999. Alphonsa was beatified in 1986.
Joseph was one of hundreds of pilgrims and church and state officials present at the Vatican on Sunday.
Alphonsa is India's second saint after Gonsalo Garcia, of Portuguese parentage, who was canonised in 1862. Albanian-born Mother Teresa, who served the poor and destitute in Kolkata, was beatified in 2003, a first step to canonisation.
The canonisation comes at a time when Christians, who make up just over 2 percent of India's billion-plus population, have come under attack in parts of the country, as long-running tensions over religious conversions burst into the open again.
"The elevation of Sister Alphonsa will help Christians to face the attacks across other parts of the country," said Father Joseph Kunnathuparampil.
Christians make up 2.3 percent of India's billion-plus population, with Roman Catholics accounting for 70 percent of the minority.
CROWDS THRONG
Braving a heavy drizzle, thousands had been pouring into Bharananganam on foot, in minibuses, motorised rickshaws and cars from 4 a.m. (1030 GMT), when mass began in the regional Malayalam language. A procession that had wound its way through the state for a month had culminated at the Alphonsa chapel earlier.
The roads of the small town were lined with posters, and the church and convent where she lived as a nun wore a festive look.
Special masses were also held in Catholic churches across Kerala, where Saint Thomas, one of the 12 apostles, is believed to have arrived in 52 AD, bringing Christianity to India, a secular country with a dominant Hindu population.
Alphonsa, who deliberately disfigured herself at a young age to ward off suitors and enter the convent, died at the age of 36. Her tomb became a pilgrimage site and she was credited with several miracles, particularly curing illness and disease.
She was beatified in 1986 during the former Pope's visit to India, which has seen increased intolerance in the past two decades with a revival of Hindu nationalism.
The killing of a Hindu leader in Orissa in August sparked some of the worst anti-Christian riots in decades, killing about 35 people and damaging dozens of churches. | |
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