Newly Sainted: Believers in the World Quiz

Answer: Righteous Among the Nations

Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad (1870-1957) was canonised by Pope Francis on 5 June 2016 after Pope John Paul II beatified her in 2000. She was born in Sweden, but moved to the USA in the late 1880s where she studied nursing and converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism. After spending time in Rome, she joined a convent and made her religious vows to the order founded by Saint Bridget of Sweden. In 1911 she founded a new order of Bridgettine Sisters with a special focus on caring for the sick and by 1931 had set up a new convent in Rome. During the Second World War, Hesselblad and the sisters she worked with continued their charitable work caring for the poor, but also - in secret - hid dozens of Jewish people from the occupying Nazi forces, saving them from deportation to concentration camps such as Auschwitz.

The term Righteous Among the Nations is an honour awarded by the state of Israel to non-Jews who, at great personal risk, protected or saved the lives of Jews during the Holocaust. Elizabeth Hesselblad was named as a Righteous Among the Nations in 2004 - nearly fifty years after her death.

Answer: Missionaries of Charity

Mother Teresa was born in Skopje in modern day Macedonia in 1910 and died in Calcutta, the city where she dedicated herself to serving the poor, in 1997. She was beatified six years after her death and her canonisation as Saint Teresa of Calcutta was completed by Pope Francis on 4 September 2016. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, which aimed to provide support to "the poorest of the poor" - people without access to basics such as food, clothing and shelter, as well as those ostracised from society due to illnesses such as leprosy, and later, HIV/AIDS. Under Mother Teresa's leadership the organisation grew from a single hospice in Calcutta to hundreds of hospices, orphanages, schools and other charitable organisations across India and around the world.

In addition to her canonisation, her work led to her being awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize in 1962 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. However, it should be noted that while she is known for her untiring efforts to support the poor, her work also generated significant criticism in terms of both the quality of the care provided and the fact that the Missionaries of Charity focused on promoting conversion to Christianity as much as on providing aid to the poor.

Answer: Mexico

The Cristero War (or Cristero Rebellion) took place in Mexico in the 1920s, following President Plutarco Elias Calles' decision to enact elements of the 1917 Mexican Constitution aimed at suppressing the Catholic Church and religious freedoms. The war, which had the unofficial support of the church, was largely led by rural workers in the north-west of the country and had enough success against government forces to keep their fight going for nearly three years. The war eventually ended in 1929 following a US-brokered peace deal between the government and the church.

Jose Sanchez del Rio joined the rebel forces following the outbreak of the conflict in 1926, but as a flagbearer rather than a fighter due to his young age. He was captured by government forces in 1928 and faced with the choice of renouncing his faith or execution. Since it was the strength of Jose's beliefs that led the rebels to allow him to join their cause in the first place, he refused to turn his back on Catholicism and continued to publicly stick to his convictions even after being tortured. He was executed on 10 February 1928. The process of declaring him a saint was begun in 1996 and completed twenty years later with his canonisation by Pope Francis.

The story of Jose Sanchez del Rio and the Cristero War was depicted in the 2012 film 'For the Greater Glory', starring Andy Garcia, Peter O'Toole and Eva Longoria.

Answer: Fatima, Portugal

The Sanctuary of our Lady of Fatima, in the Cova da Iria area of the Portuguese city of Fatima, is a major Catholic pilgrimage destination. It is located on the site where three children, Francisco and Jacinta Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos, are said to have witnessed visions of an angel and the Virgin Mary while tending sheep in 1916 and 1917. All of the children were noted for their religious piety and their physical commitment to their faith grew significantly more pronounced following their experiences. Francisco and Jacinta were only eight and seven years old respectively when they saw the apparition of Mary in 1917, while Lucia was ten. The siblings both died as a result of the Spanish Flu epidemic - Francisco in April 1919 at the age of ten and Jacinta in February 1920, aged nine - while Lucia went on to become a nun and died at the age of 97 in 2005.

Despite dying at such a young age, Francisco and Jacinta Marto left the world with the legacy of a new place of pilgrimage - one which has given comfort to the millions of people who visit it each year. The process of declaring the siblings as saints was delayed for many years by a ruling from Pope Pius XI in 1937 that children could not be considered for canonisation. A special dispensation was eventually granted in 1979 and the pair were declared venerable in 1989, beatified in 2000 and finally canonised by Pope Francis in 2017.

Answer: Women

Manuel Miguez Gonzalez (1831-1925) joined the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, otherwise known as the Piarists, in Madrid in 1850. The main focus of this religious group is education, particularly providing it for free to children living in poverty. As such, the promotion of education was the main focus of Gonzalez's calling to the priesthood from the very beginning of his career. It wasn't until 1885, when he encountered a large number of poverty-stricken illiterate women while working in the city of Sanlucar in Andalucia, that he decided to found his own organisation to provide education specifically to women and girls. In addition to providing education, Gonzalez was also interested in science and natural remedies, and often helped people by providing medicines and treatments.

Also known as Faustino of the Incarnation, Gonzalez was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1998 and canonised by Pope Francis in 2017.

Answer: Pope Paul VI

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini took the name Paul VI when he became pope in 1963. His first job on taking office was to complete and conclude the Second Vatican Council, which had been initiated by his predecessor Pope John XXIII. Under Pope Paul VI's leadership, the Second Vatican Council was notable for introducing a range of reforms, which included those aimed at "advancing the unity of Christianity" and "dialogue with the world". Paul VI personally promoted both of these aims, setting up what later became the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, meeting with the leaders of the Orthodox and Anglican churches, and travelling the world to speak to followers on every continent. He also promoted a message of peace and founded 1 January as a new Catholic feast day known as the World Day of Peace.

On 14 October 2018, Pope Paul VI became the fourth 20th century pontiff to be canonised, after Pope Pius X (1954), Pope John XIII and Pope John Paul II (both 2014).

Answer: San Salvador

Oscar Romero was the Archbishop of San Salvador from 1977 until his death three years later. His period in office coincided with a turbulent period in El Salvador's political history: the government of President Carlos Humberto Romero (no relation), which was noted for corruption and repression, was overthrown by a military coup in October 1979 in a move that sparked a civil war. Oscar Romero was a vocal opponent of both groups. He used his platform to condemn both the human rights abuses carried out by President Romero's government and the poverty and social injustice endemic in society as a result of its policies. He also condemned the actions of the new military government and their actions to repress both the church and the wider population during the civil war - calling on the Vatican to support his stance (unsuccessfully) and criticising the US government for providing military support to the junta.

Romero's willingness to go up against his government ultimately led to his death. On 24 March 1980, one day after delivering a prominent sermon calling on soldiers to stop following orders to repress human rights, he was shot and killed while conducting a mass at the chapel of the Divine Providence Hospital in San Salvador. Immediately following his death, Romero became a martyr in the eyes of his supporters but discussions over his potential sainthood didn't begin until 1993 and he was eventually canonised by Pope Francis in 2018.

Answer: 1794 eruption of Mount Vesuvius

Vincenzo Romano was born in 1751 in Torre del Greco, near the Italian city of Naples. He became a priest at the church of Santa Croce in his home town after his ordination in 1775 and was noted for his frugal lifestyle and willingness to provide help and support to the poorer sections of society. He was particularly noted for his work with orphans and young men who wished to train for the priesthood. The process for his beatification began around ten years after his death in 1831, but wasn't completed until 1963 following the identification of miracles (the unexplained recovery of two cancer patients) associated with his intercession. Pope Francis completed his canonisation as a saint in October 2018.

Torre del Greco is a coastal town located in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. The volcano erupted on several occasions in the 18th century, but the 1794 event generated a lava flow that destroyed a large part of Torre del Greco. Saint Vincenzo Romano was a key figure in organising both the clear up operation and the rebuilding of the town, including personally taking part in the work to rebuild his own church.

Answer: John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman (1801-1880) began his religious career as an Anglican priest before converting to Catholicism in 1845. He was ordained as a Catholic priest and eventually went on to be appointed as a cardinal in 1879 for his efforts to promote and support the Catholic Church in Britain. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 and canonised in October 2019 by Pope Francis in a ceremony attended by the Prince of Wales.

Newman's work in support of Catholicism included his role as the first rector of the Catholic University of Ireland (which went on to become University College Dublin) at a time when Catholics were discriminated against by Anglican institutions, as well as founding the Catholic University School in Dublin to act as its feeder organisation. The first Catholic student society at the University of Oxford was named the Newman Society in his honour. Newman was also a noted author of religious and philosophical works, a poet (his 1865 poem 'The Dream of Gerontius' was turned into a choral work by Edward Elgar) and a hymn writer (with 'Lead, Kindly Light' being probably the most well-known example).

Answer: Brazil

Saint Dulce of the Poor was one of five people canonised by Pope Francis in the Vatican's St. Peter's Square on 13 October 2019. She was born in Salvador, the capital of Brazil's Bahia state, in May 1914 as Maria Rita de Sousa Pontes, but took her late mother's name, Dulce, when she became a nun at the age of 19.

She began working to alleviate poverty by providing shelter, food and health care at the convent for those in need. Eventually though, the scale of her work grew to the point that she was able to set up the Obras Sociais Irmã Dulce (generally known as OSID) in 1959 and open its first dedicated hospital a year later. Sister Dulce remained an active member of the organisation's management for most of her life and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988 (an award that went to the UN Peacekeeping Forces). After her death in 1992, her charitable foundation continued her work and legacy into the 21st century.