https://apnews.com/article/latin-america-venezuela-health-coronavirus-religion-12b7a72564a33fb9d6154d56c1e1057e
Initial plans called for a ceremony at a stadium, but the coronavirus pandemic has forced organizers to change venues, limit attendance to fewer than 300 people — mostly priests and nuns — and leave most Venezuelans to watch the event on television. The pared-down event will take place in a small chapel at a Catholic school on the edge of a mountainous national park north of Caracas.
Vargas has an image of the doctor on an altar in her home that is always illuminated with green lightbulbs, except during the blackouts that plague the country.When Pope John Paul II visited Venezuela in February 1996, he received a petition signed by 5 million people — almost one in four Venezuelans — asking that he declare Hernández a saint and make his veneration official.
Hernández, who never married, graduated as a doctor in Caracas in 1888. He traveled to Europe to study and then to become a Catholic monk, but his fragile health was affected by Italy’s cold and humid weather. He returned to Venezuela to recover and stayed permanently.On June 29, 1919, he was killed while crossing a street shortly after picking up some medicines at a pharmacy to take to a very poor old woman.
Pope Francis signed the decree for the beatification last June. In a video message Thursday, he noted that the beatification will take place at a challenging time for Venezuelans, saying, “I am aware that these prolonged hardships and anguish have been aggravated by the terrible pandemic of COVID-19 that affects us all.”
Yikes they really could have used him at the tail end of influenza there too.
What’s cool is that thanks to socialism, every Venezuelan doctor is now a “doctor of the poor”.
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