VATICAN CITY 3 OCTOBER, 1982 (VISNEWS)

GV INTERIOR Chapel

GV Pope arrives at altar to applause

Background: Thousands of pilgrims packed the Papal Chapel in the Vatican City on October 3 to watch Pope John Paul II beautify the nineteenth century French nun Jeanne Jugan. The ceremony, the first step to canonization in the Roman Catholic Church, was held before a gathering of priests and cardinals. The Pope pronounce Jeanne Jugan, the founder of a charitable order of nuns caring for the poor, as "worthy of sainthood". Sister Jeanne, celebrated in the unveiling of a tapestry in the chapel, died in 1879 aged 86. She lived to serve the poor and the sick, the Pope told the congregation. The organisation she founded, The Sisters of the Poor, has become one of the most prominent missionary bodies. Salvatore Lilli, an Italian missionary who worked in the wildest areas of Armenia and Asia and was killed by Turkish troops in 1895, was also beautified at the same ceremony, as were seven Armenian Christian laymen.
JCIH/BB
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