Pope to canonise Ireland's apostle to the sick

BY SIMON CALDWELL
POPE BENEDICT XVI has cleared the way for the canonisation of a priest whose supernatural healing powers cured hundreds of sick in Ireland.
Dutch-born Blessed Charles of St Andrew, who lived at the Passionist Monastery of Mount Argus in the Harold's Cross area of the Irish capital, will be made a saint on June 3 after the Pope formally attributed a second miracle to his intercession during a public consistory at the Vatican last Friday.
Doff Dormans, a Dutchman healed of a terminal illness through his intercession, may well attend Blessed Charles's canonisation in Rome.
Pope Benedict had privately approved of the second miracle during a meeting with Vatican officials in December. But the decree last week means that Blessed Charles will be among the five Blesseds to be canonised by the Pope this year.
The news was warmly welcomed by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.
Fr Brian D'Arcy, superior of the Passionist monastery in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, added that he was surprised the Vatican had decided to canonise Blessed Charles so quickly. "You can't take it as expected," he said. "We were hoping that it would happen and we were delighted that a second miracle was accepted after a very exhaustive inquiry by the Vatican. We were very happy to see that the medical expertise in the Vatican agreed that it was indeed a miracle and that the man could not have been cured naturally."
He said most of the priests and brothers from Passionist houses in Ireland and Britain would be travelling to Rome for the event, adding that he expected many thousands of Irish lay Catholics to go with them because so many saw Blessed Charles as one of their own. "He came to Ireland immediately after the famine which was a very poor time and a time when religion was at a very low ebb, especially in Dublin," said Fr D'Arcy.
"He came knowing very little English and helped the poor people and especially the sick, which was his special mission. When he was sent back to England he could work no more miracles but he was able to resume performing miracles again when he returned to Ireland."
Fr D'Arcy said Blessed Charles would be an ideal patron saint for migrants who wished to start new lives in the Irish Republic.
Blessed Charles was born in 1821 and baptised Johannes Andreas Houben. He was the fourth pf 11 children of a couple who lived in Munstergeleen, a village in the south-east of Holland near the border with Germany and Belgium.
He joined the Dutch army as a reservist in 1840 and while serving he decided that he wanted to become a Passionist priest, later entering the novitiate at Ere in Belgium at the age of 19 and adopting the name Charles.
He was ordained in 1850 and two years later he was sent to England. While at Passionist parishes in St Helens, Lancashire, and Highgate. London, he came into contact with poor Irish immigrants who had fled the potato famine but who could not afford the passage to America.
He was said to have admired their struggle and their loyalty to the faith. He began to call them "my people".
Five years later, at the age of 35, he arrived at the newly founded monastery of Mount Argus in Dublin where 10 Passionists were living in a reconstructed farmhouse with a temporary chapel added.
But soon they started building an 80-room monastery and retreat house fOr priests and lay people, the first of its kind in Ireland. Blessed Charles was assigned at first to find money for the project.
He soon developed a reputation for holiness, however, and he drew crowds of people convinced he would help them to overcome sickness, depression and mental illnesses. Often people would send carriages to bring him out through the city and into the country to visit the sick.
He was eventually sent back to England after his enemies accused him of advising people not to turn to their doctors for help. After eight years he returned to Mount Argus and lived there for the last 19 years of his life. He died peacefully on January 5, 1893, and his funeral was attended by thousands.
His grave was eventually transferred to a shrine inside the Passionist church where it has become a popular pilgrimage destination. He , was declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II in 1979 and the cure of a woman with a large inoperable growth in her stomach led to his beatification in 1988.
The second miracle took place in his home village of Munstergeleen in 1999 after Mr Dorrnans was admitted to hospital complaining of severe stomach pains.
Doctors soon discovered he was suffering from a ruptured appendix which had caused severe damage to his intestines.
They expected him to die from his condition within hours. When the hospital staff informed Mr Dorman s that there was no hope of a recovery, he said goodbye to his wife and family, received the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick and then prayed to Blessed Charles for help before he slipped into a coma. Since his recovery he has been attending Mass every day at the chapel beside the house where Blessed Charles was born.
The canonisation in June will be the first of a saint whose tomb is in Ireland.
On the same day the Pope will also canonise Blessed George Preca; Blessed Szymon of Lipnica, a Polish Franciscan, and Blessed Marie-Eugenie de Jesus, the 19th-century founder of the Institute of Sisters of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.