Pope Francis decrees path of canonisation for Blessed Peter To Rot of Papua New Guinea

Pope Francis, who is on the mend after a battle with pneumonia, has approved a decree related to the canonisation of a martyred layman celebrated in Australian churches.

The Vatican has confirmed Pope Francis’ health has “improved slightly” in the wake of his battle with pneumonia as the pontiff decreed three more saints will be canonised.

Pope Francis, who is still regaining the ability to speak, authorised the publication of the decree that he has cleared the path to canonisation for Papua New Guinea’s martyred layman Peter To Rot.

Blessed Peter will be joined as a saint by Archbishop Ignatius Choukrallah Maloyan, who was murdered during the Armenian genocide, and Mother Maria del Monte Carmelo of Venezuela.

An illustration of Blessed Peter To Rot who was martyred in a PNG village in 1945.

Blessed Peter, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995, is included on the liturgical calendar of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Catholic churches in Australia who celebrate him annually.

Blessed Peter was born on March 5, 1912 and died in July 1945.

He was executed by Japanese forces who, after pushing Australian troops out of PNG, banned the practising of Christianity.

When the parish priest was forced to flee the village, he left the church in Blessed Peter’s hands and he carried out services in secret, aware he was risking his life to do so.

The Feast of Blessed Peter To Rot Memorial Mass is held at St Mary's Catholic Church in Townsville

‘TIME OF HEALING’

Pope Francis urged Catholics to mark Lent as a “time of healing” as he missed his seventh Angelus prayer.

The 88-year-old head of the Catholic Church left Rome’s Gemelli hospital last Sunday after five weeks of treatment, returning to the Vatican for what his doctors said would be at least two months of convalescence.

Francis was again absent Sunday for the Angelus, normally delivered at midday from a window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking Saint Peter’s Square, publishing the text instead.

“Dearest friends, let us live this Lent as a time of healing,” he wrote, referring to the period before Easter, the holiest period in the Christian calendar, celebrated this year on April 20.

“I too am experiencing it this way, in my soul and in my body.”

He added: “Frailty and illness are experiences we all have in common; all the more, however, we are brothers in the salvation Christ has given us.”

The Vatican said Friday the pope was showing “slight improvements”, with his voice – strained and weak following his double pneumonia – reported to be stronger.

Doctors said Francis almost died twice during his hospitalisation, the longest and most fraught of his 12 years as head of the Church.

The pope on Sunday offered his prayers for those involved in conflicts in Ukraine, the Palestinian territories and Israel, Lebanon, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as for quake-hit Myanmar.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics noted that “thanks be to God, there are also positive events”.

He described a recent border agreement between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – seen as key for the stability of Central Asia – as an “excellent diplomatic achievement”.

ROME HOSPITAL MAKES SURPRISING ADMISSION

Pope Francis came so close to death that the staff who tended on him in an Italian hospital, considered a plan to end his suffering.

CNN reports the lead doctor on the medical team looking after the ailing pontiff, who was hospitalised on February 14 for double pneumonia, considered stopping his treatment so that he could die in peace.

Pope Francis waves as he leaves by car the Gemelli hospital after a lengthy hospital stay for pneumonia. His doctor revealed medical staff at one point considered discontinuing his treatment. Picture: AFP

Professor Sergio Alfieri told Italian media that at a critical point in Pope Francis’ illness, when the pontiff inhaled his own vomit on February 28, they had a weighty decision to make.

“We had to choose whether to stop and let him go and force it and try with all the drugs and therapies possible, running the very high risk of damaging other organs.

“And in the end, we took this path,” Dr Alfieri said.

It was Pope Francis’ nurse who made the end decision, said Alfieri, who leads the team at Rome’s Gemelli hospital.

The pope’s “personal health care assistant Massimiliano Strappetti” encouraged them not to give up.

Strappetti reportedly said, “Try everything, we won’t give up. That’s what we all thought, too. And no one gave up.”

ROYAL VISIT POSTPONED

It comes as Buckingham Palace announced King Charles and Queen Camilla’s planned visit to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis has been postponed.

Pope Francis speaking with then Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, during a private audience on April 4, 2017 at the Vatican. Picture: AFP

In a statement released on Tuesday afternoon, UK time, it was explained that the decision had come “by mutual agreement”.

“The King and Queen’s State Visit to The Holy See has been postponed by mutual agreement, as medical advice has now suggested that Pope Francis would benefit from an extended period of rest and recuperation,” the statement read.

“Their Majesties send The Pope their best wishes for his convalescence and look forward to visiting him in The Holy See, once he has recovered.”

Pope Francis appears on the balcony of the Gemelli hospital. Picture: AFP

POPE FRANCIS LEAVES HOSPITAL, RETURNS TO VATICAN

Pope Francis greeted and thanked the faithful from a balcony as he left Rome’s Gemelli hospital.

“Thank you, everyone”, a weak-sounding Francis said into a microphone, as he sat in a wheelchair waving gently to hundreds of people gathered below, and doing the occasional thumbs-up sign.

“I can see that woman with yellow flowers, well done”, he said with a small smile, to laughter from the crowd.

Pope Francis waving to the crowd from a window of the Gemelli hospital in Rome before being discharged. Picture: AFP

Pope Francis leaving the Gemelli hospital. Picture: AFP

The pope was on the balcony for two minutes then was discharged immediately.

He left by car, waving from the closed window of the front seat as he drove past journalists, and could be seen wearing a cannula — a plastic tube tucked into his nostrils which delivers oxygen.

Francis looked tired and thinner than usual. Doctors have said that his health has improved sufficiently for him to go home, but that he still faces a long recovery of at least two months.

It comes as the pontiff called Sunday for an “immediate” end to Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, and for the resumption of dialogue for the release of hostages and a “definitive ceasefire”.

“I am saddened by the resumption of the intense Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, with so many deaths and injuries”, Francis wrote in his Angelus prayer, which was published Sunday as Francis was being discharged from hospital.

“I ask that the weapons be silenced immediately and that the courage be found to resume dialogue so that all the hostages can be freed and a definitive ceasefire reached”, said Francis.

Originally published as Pope Francis decrees path of canonisation for Blessed Peter To Rot of Papua New Guinea