On Feb. 8, a Mass for the co-founder of World Youth Day, Cardinal Eduardo Pironio, was celebrated as his cause for beautification continues. Cardinal Pironio was born in Argentina in 1920, and served as bishop of Mar del Plata, secretary and president of the Latin American bishops' council, prefect for the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. He shared a close spiritual relationship with Sister Lucia, the visionary of Fatima. The process of his beatification began in June 2006, a little more than eight years after his death. At the Mass on Feb. 8, Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, who presided at the Mass, said that he hoped "the church will recognize his holiness and offer him as a model for living." Cardinal Bertone told the congregation that Cardinal Pironio "made of his own existence an act of love for God and for his brothers and sisters."
(This item originally published in The Providence Visitor)
