Pope to canonize Brazilian friar

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Brazil is getting its first native-born saint. Pope Benedict XVI, who is visiting Brazil, will formally recognize Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao, a Franciscan friar who lived and worked in Brazil in the 18th and early 19th centuries, on Friday.

Friar Galvao is beloved by many Brazilians, especially in Sao Paulo, for what they believe to be his healing powers and his ability to ease childbirth. While alive, Galvao invented a “pill,” actually a small piece of paper inscribed with a prayer to the Virgin Mary that people swallow in the hopes of being cured of some ailment or affliction.

Not everyone in the church is delighted with the Friar Galvao pills, as they are known, since they border on the purely superstitious. But nuns make tens of thousands of them, and distribute them to the faithful for free.

Latin America’s other saint-in-waiting, Mons. Oscar Romero, has received something of a boost from the pope. Asked aboard his flight to Brazil about the case, Benedict praised the slain archbishop of San Salvador as a “great witness to the faith” who stood up to the military dictatorship of his day and who “merits beatification.” Beatification is the step before sainthood.

Posted by Tracy Wilkinson in Sao Paulo.