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Bartolo Longo

A Venezuelan priest who concelebrated the canonization Mass with Pope Leo XIV celebrates his country's first saints in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 19, 2025. / Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN

Pope Leo XIV Canonizes Seven New Saints, Including First From Venezuela and Papua New Guinea

Oct 19, 2025

Pope Leo XIV declared seven new saints before an estimated 70,000 people in St. Peter’s Square at the canonization Mass on Oct. 19. Among the new saints is St. José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros, known as Venezuela's “the doctor of the poor," St. Peter To Rot, a lay catechist martyred in Papua New Guinea, and St. Bartolo Longo, a former Satanist who had a dramatic conversion and built the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii.

Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square for the recitation of the Regina Caeli on May 7, 2023. | Vatican Media

Pope Francis: Jesus Calls us to Set our Sights on Heaven

May 7, 2023

Pope Francis on Sunday warned against the danger of living life without a sense of purpose or a destination to set our course by, reminding the faithful that Jesus is “our compass for reaching heaven,” our true home.