Health Secretary Matt Hancock thanked Muslims for their Ramadan “sacrifice” on St George’s Day, but made no mention of the English national day itself.
Pope Francis has placed the first American black Catholic priest on track for sainthood, declaring him to be “venerable” on Wednesday.
In a meeting with priests, Pope Francis announced that he would canonize Pope Paul VI later this year, and that he and emeritus Pope Benedict XVI are on the “waiting list” to become saints.
In his Angelus message on the Christian feast of All Saints, the Pope said to the large crowd assembled in the sunny Saint Peter’s Square: “we experience in a particularly vivid way the reality of the communion of saints, our extended family, made up of all members of the Church, both those who are still pilgrims on earth, and those—immensely more—who have already departed for heaven.”
A growing trend among Christian families is dressing children as saints for Halloween, rather than as ghouls or witches, to take back the celebration of the “Hallowed Eve” of the Feast of all Saints.
On Wednesday afternoon, Pope Francis canonized Father Junípero Serra, a Franciscan friar who founded a chain of Catholic missions up and down the coast of California, each of which would become a major Californian city, such as San Diego, Santa Clara. and San Francisco.
The Coptic Orthodox Church has announced that the 21 Egyptian Christians murdered by the Islamic State in Libya will be commemorated in its Church calendar as martyrs and saints.
