St.ALPHONSA - INDIAN

Sister Alphonsa has become India's first woman saint when she was canonised by Pope Benedict at a specialceremony at the Vatican on Sunday 12^th October 2008. Christians make up 2.3 per cent of India's billion-plus population, with Roman Catholics accounting for 70 percent of the minority that is largely concentrated in the country's south and northeast.Alphonsa is India's second saint after Gonsalo Garcia, of Portuguese parentage, who was canonised in 1862. Albanian-born Mother Teresa, who served the poor and destitute in Kolkata, was beatified in 2003, a first step to canonisation. Alphonsa Muttathupadathu was born in Kudamaloor, a village near Kottayam, and lost her mother at a young age. She was brought up by a maternal aunt, a strict, religious woman, according to a local resident who knew the family. Even as a child, Alphonsa suffered from various illnesses till she died at the age of 36. Her tomb, close to the Franciscan Clarist convent where she lived, gradually became a pilgrimage site and she was credited with several miracles, particularly curing illness and disease. She was beatified in 1986 during the former Pope's visit to India, a secular country which has seen increased intolerance in the past two decades with a revival of Hindu nationalism. It's a matter of immense pride for us since one of our believers is being bestowed with the sainthood, It will strengthen the church in the country.