Blessed Joseph Vaz will be proclaimed Saint Jan. 14‎

Blessed Joseph Vaz, Apostle of Sri Lanka to be delcared saint Jan. 14, 2014.

20/10/2014

Source: Vatican Radio. (Vatican)  Pope Francis announced on Monday that Blessed Joseph Vaz, the Apostle of Sri Lanka, will be declared saint on Jan. 14, 2015.  It will take place during his visit to the island nation Jan. 13-15‎.   He fixed the canonization date at the start of the consistory of cardinals in the Vatican convoked to update the prelates on the situation  of the Christians of the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria, and the commitment of the  Church for peace in the region.   Another canonization date - that of Italian Sr. Maria Cristina ‎of the Immaculate Conception - has not been decided.
Known as the Apostle of Sri Lanka for his ingenious apostolic zeal in reviving ‎the Catholic faith in Sri ‎Lanka under the harsh persecution of Calvinist Dutch rule in the 17th century, Fr. ‎Vaz, an Oratorian ‎priest from what is today Goa, India, was declared Blessed by St. John Paul II in ‎January, 1995 in Sri ‎Lanka.  On Sept. 17, Pope Francis declared Blessed Vaz would be canonized, and the date was announced on Oct. 20.