Newly Sainted Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mistress of Theologians

St Angela was a member of the Third Order of St. Francis back in the late 13th and early 14th centuries - a 'third order' being a group of people who are committed to living to the ideals and spirit of Christian churches, but who often tend to live secular lives (although some may be ordained). Angela was a late convert to a religious life having first married and had children (who all pre-deceased her). She then became a prolific writer on Christian themes, particularly her own visions and religious experiences. She was canonised over 700 years after her death by Pope Francis in October 2013.

Her feast day is January 4th (or January 7th in the US) and amongst other things she is the patron saint of people struggling with temptation (particularly sexual temptation), widows and those who have lost children.

Answer: Otranto

St. Antonio Primaldo was the leader and spokesperson of the group of around 800 martyrs who became known as the Martyrs of Otranto following their murder in the late 15th century. The Ottoman forces of Mehmet the Conqueror invaded the city of Otranto and demanded that the people convert from Catholicism to Islam. The mass refusal to comply was led by Primaldo, a tailor, who is said to have declared that "Now it is time for us to fight to save our souls for the Lord. And since he died on the cross for us, it is fitting that we should die for him". The martyrs were all beheaded - and collectively canonised in May 2013 by Pope Francis.

Unsurprisingly, the group are considered patron saints of Otranto. Their feast day is 14th August.

Answer: Society of Jesus

St. Peter Faber (1506-1546) was one of the six co-founders of the Society of Jesus alongside St. Ignatius of Loyola. He was from the Duchy of Savoy, which is now part of modern day France. He studied at the University of Paris, where he met the other co-founders of the society, and was ordained in 1534 - the first of the Jesuits to become a priest. The Society of Jesus itself was formally recognised as a religious order by Pope Paul III in 1540.

Faber was known for the arduous journeys he undertook across Europe on foot and for his advocacy of the reform of the Roman Catholic clergy following the Protestant Reformation. The canonisation of the first Jesuit priest by the first Jesuit pope took place in December 2013. His feast day is celebrated on 2nd August.

Answer: Quebec City

Marie of the Incarnation was born Marie Guyart in the French city of Tours in 1599. She went on to join the Ursuline order of nuns and travelled to what was then New France in 1640. When she arrived in Quebec City to establish the convent it wasn't really a city - it could probably have been more aptly described as a collection of a few houses. Marie's work there included opening a school for the daughters of both European settlers and First Nations families, which became the first formal educational establishment for women in North America. She is also known for her religious texts (written in languages such as Algonquin and Iroquois) and for her written histories of life in the very earliest days of what is now modern Canada.

She was canonised by Pope Francis in April 2014 and her feast day is celebrated on 30th April. (She should not be confused with the Carmelite nun, also known as Marie of the Incarnation, who was beatified in 1791.)

Answer: Sri Lanka

St. Joseph Vaz was a missionary to Ceylon, which is now known as Sri Lanka. Catholicism was first introduced to the country in the 16th century when the Portuguese began to establish control over the coastal regions. The Dutch-Portuguese War (which lasted from 1601-1661) resulted in control of the island passing to the Dutch and the gradual replacement of Catholicism with Protestantism in the form of Calvinism. Vaz arrived in Ceylon in 1687 and (along with a handful of other missionaries) was responsible for re-establishing the religion there. He spent many years living in Kandy - which remained independent until the early 19th century and was the last part of Ceylon to submit to British colonisation - and died there in 1711.

Depictions of Vaz often include a mitre because he was offered, but declined, the title of Bishop of Ceylon. He did however become known as the "Apostle of Ceylon". He was canonised in January 2015 during Pope Francis's visit to Colombo and is a patron saint of Sri Lanka.

Answer: 18th

St. Junípero Serra lived from 1713 to 1784. His birth name was Miquel Joseph Serre, but he took the name Junípero in honour of Brother Juniper - a friend and companion of St. Francis. He firstly became a Franciscan friar and was then ordained as a priest in 1737. He travelled to New Spain (now modern day Mexico) in 1749 and from there started the process of creating missions to convert the native people to Catholicism, undertaking expeditions to expand the reach of the religion northwards into what is now California. He died at one of the missions he founded, Mission San Carlos Borromeo in the city of Monterey.

Serra's canonisation in September 2015 was controversial with some Native American groups who believe that the process of introducing Catholicism damaged and suppressed their culture. His feast day is 1st July.

Answer: Stigmata

Mariam Baouardy was born in the Levant, in what is now modern day Israel, in 1846. She was attacked while working as a domestic servant in Egypt and suffered a slit throat. She attributed her 'miraculous' recovery to the treatment and care she received from an anonymous nun "dressed in blue". This incident inspired her to embrace a religious life and become a nun herself - she eventually achieved this ambition in 1867 and was given the name Mary of Jesus Crucified. By this point she had already begun to suffer the stigmata - pain, marks or wounds located on the same areas of the body as the injuries inflicted on Jesus Christ during his crucifixion.

Baouardy's feast day is 26th August. She was also noted for her service to the poor and was canonised by Pope Francis in May 2015.

Answer: Colombia

St. Laura of St. Catherine of Siena became the first Colombian saint when she was canonised by Pope Francis in May 2013. She lived from 1874 to 1949 and was known for her work with the native people of Colombia. She founded an organisation known as the Congregation of Missionary Sisters of Immaculate Mary and St. Catherine of Siena in 1914, with the aim of living amongst native people and spreading the Gospel. She was a staunch opponent of prejudice or bigotry against them and is now a patron saint of those suffering racial discrimination.

Her feast day is celebrated on 21st October.

Answer: Her tomb at St. Mary's Convent, Ollur

St. Euphrasia Eluvathingal (1877-1952) was born Rosa Eluvathingal, but became a nun of the Syro-Malabar Church after experiencing a religious calling as a young child. She spent the majority of her life at the St. Mary's Convent in Ollur - part of the city of Thrissur in Kerala, South India. She took her vows there in 1900 and remained there for the next 50 or so years, becoming noted for her devotion to prayer and eventually taking over as Mother Superior. Due to the miracles attributed to St. Euphrasia that allowed her canonisation by Pope Francis in November 2014, her tomb at the convent has become a place of pilgrimage for those looking for a miracle.

Her feast day is celebrated on 29th August - the day of her death.

Answer: Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII

Pope John Paul II was born Karol Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland in 1920. He rose through the ranks of the Catholic Church in that country, becoming Archbishop of Krakow and eventually the first Polish pope (and the first non-Italian pope since the 16th century). He held the position from 1978 to 2005 - one of the longest serving popes in modern history - although he had to survive several assassination attempts, including one in which he was seriously injured in 1981. His feast day is now celebrated on 22nd October - the date of his papal inauguration.

Pope John XXIII was pope for almost five years between October 1958 and his death in June 1963. He was born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli in the Lombardy region of Italy in 1881 and entered the priesthood in 1904. His career saw him act as a diplomat for the Church for several years and included stints in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece as well as serving as a papal nuncio (an envoy of the Holy See) to France during the Second World War. It was during the time of this latter appointment that he was noted for his actions in saving Jewish people and other refugees from the Holocaust. His feast day is now celebrated on the 11th October by the Roman Catholic Church - the opening day of the Second Vatican Council, which he initiated in 1962.