Fr. Tomás Ravaioli, vicepostulator of the cause of canonization of Blessed Peter to Rot, explained the reasons why Francisco gave him from the miracle for his canonization, which will be chaired by Pope Leo XIV in October of this year.
Who was Peter to Rot?
Receive the main news of ACI Press by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social networks. Subscribe to our free channels today:
Peter to Rot was a layman and father, who was killed by the Japanese at age 33, when they occupied Papua New Guinea during World War II. His preaching in favor of marriage between a man and a woman, as well as the importance of the family, won many powerful enemies who wanted to continue living polygamy, an ancestral practice to which he always opposed.
To Rot will be declared holy with eight other blessed, among whom are María del Monte Carmelo Rendiles and José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros; the first saints of Venezuela; and Bartolo Longo, a former nationalist. All of them will be canonized on October 19, 2025 in the Vatican.
Why did Blessed and martyr Peter to Rot be dispensed from the miracle?
In an interview granted to the VATICAN AGENCY FIDESFr. Ravaioli explained on this issue that “there are two fundamental aspects that must be highlighted. First, the intercession of Peter to Rot is attributed numerous signs and thanks. It should not be thought that there are no miracles; we simply prefer to call them ‘signs’, since a miracle, strictly half of the Blessed ”.
Second, the priest said, “there is an objective difficulty: in many areas of the country there are no hospitals, doctors or professionals who can provide clinical tests or documentation. In addition, there are no written or certified records, since the population of the villages retains a markedly oral culture.”
“This lack of resources makes extremely difficult ‘demonstrate’ or ‘document’ a miracle according to the demanded criteria,” he said.
Therefore, they asked Pope Francis, at the beginning of 2024, the dispensation of the miracle that is required so that a blessed can be canonized, a dispensation that the Holy Father granted a few weeks later.
What does it mean that Peter to Rot is declared holy?
The missionary priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) stressed that the canonization of Peter to Rot recalls that “holiness is not a privilege reserved for a few, but a universal vocation, necessary for all.”
In addition, he continues, “the testimony of To Rot proclaims clearly and courage before the whole world that God’s project for family and marriage is: a man and a woman, united for a lifetime, to death.”
“At a time when the unity and indissolubility of marriage are constantly attacked, distorted and ridiculed, to rot – which spilled his blood in defense of these truths – reminds us that it is more important to obey God than to men,” he emphasizes.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.