Notes and Comments

Association News

The 99th annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA), inaugurating its centennial year, will be held with the American Historical Association in Chicago, January 3–6, 2019 at the Chicago Hilton Hotel. The Executive Council meeting of the Association will be held Thursday, January 3 at 3:30 p.m. Dr. James T. Carroll of Iona College serves as program chair. The ACHA program consists of twenty-one sessions with over eighty scholars participating. Registration is open until December 15 on the ACHA website: acha@achahistory.org

In March, 2018, the Executive Council accepted the resignation of the Reverend R. Bentley Anderson, S.J., of Fordham University as executive secretary-treasurer of the Association. After the appropriate search, the Executive Council has appointed Dr. Charles T. Strauss, assistant professor of history, Mount St. Mary's University, Emmitsburg, MD, as executive secretary-treasurer. During the summer the office of the Association was relocated from Fordham University to Mount St. Mary's University, whose officials warmly welcomed its arrival and provided ample office space. The new address of the Association's executive offices: American Catholic Historical Association, Mount St. Mary's University, 16300 Old Emmitsburg Road, Emmitsburg, MD 21227.

Causes of Saints

At a public ordinary consistory on July 19, 2018, Pope Francis announced that he will canonize Blessed Nunzio Sulprizio (1817–1836), a young Italian layperson, on October 14, 2018 during the Synod of Bishops on Youth held in Rome.

Born on April 13, 1817, in Pescosansonesco, Italy, Blessed Nunzio was orphaned early in life. He lived with a very violent uncle who beat him. Because of this violence, the young craftsman of Naples suffered from a wound in the leg, earning him the nickname "the little saint lame." In spite of illness, the young man assisted others especially relieving the misery of the poor. He spent the last two year of his life at Naples' hospital for incurables, where he died on May 5, 1836 at age nineteen.

Blessed Nunzio Sulprizio's canonization on October 14 has been added to the canonizations of Pope Paul VI, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Father Francesco Spinelli, Father Vincent Romano, Mother Maria-Katherina Kasper, and Mother Nazaria Ignacia of Santa Teresa de Jesus. Their canonizations on that date had previously been announced.

On May 26, 2018, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He assumed the office at the end of August. He was created a cardinal along with thirteen other prelates at a consistory on June 29, 2018. He succeeded Cardinal Angelo Amato, who served as prefect since 2008. Cardinal Becciu was born in Pattada, Italy, on June 2, 1948. After graduating in Canon Law he was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Ozieri in 1972. He joined the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1984, and worked for many years in various missions, including in the Central African Republic, New Zealand, Liberia, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to Angola and to São Tomé and Príncipe. On December 1, that year, he was consecrated bishop. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI transferred him to the Apostolic Nunciature of Cuba, from which he was recalled to the Vatican to serve as the Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State. New-elected pontiff, Pope Francis confirmed him in the post in 2013. On February 2, 2017, the Pope appointed him special delegate to the Knights of Malta to resolve the crisis in the order.

Joint Effort to Advance Causes of Black Sainthood

New Orleans, LA—An effort to unite the causes and respective guilds working toward the canonization of five Catholic African Americans was announced during a special event held at the St. Katharine Drexel Chapel on the campus of Xavier University of Louisiana.

Xavier and its Institute for Black Catholic Studies (IBCS) served as the host and administrator for the event, which set as its goal the goal the gathering of scholarly work and relevant academic studies for...