A historical cause

by Stefania Falasca

Friar Antonio de Sant' Anna Galvão

The cause of canonization of Friar Antonio de Sant’ Anna Galvão (1739-1822), professed priest of the Order of the Discalced Friars Minor, founder of the Convent of the Concepionist Nuns (“Recolhimento Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Luz”), was opened in 1938, 116 years after his death. Four inquiries were opened in the span of fifty years: in 1938 for virtue, in 1949, 1969 and 1980-1991 for the reputation of holiness. Among the witnesses who were called in the first inquiry of 1938 there was even a former slave: Lucrezia Cananea de Deus, 125 years old, who had known Friar Galvão. Apart from the testimony given at the several inquiries, since the cause concerns the past, the decisive evidence for holiness was drawn from documents, of the time in which the religious lived which were critically assessed.
After the diocesan phase, the cause was forwarded to Rome and, on 15 April 1991 was entrusted to the chairman of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints Father Cristoforo Bove, who edited the documented biography and the drafting of the Positio super vita et virtutibus, with the collaboration of the Brazilian nun Celia Cadorin, Little Sister of the Immaculate Conception.
Friar Antonio de Sant’ Anna Galvão was beatified by John Paul II on 25 October 1998. The miracle for his canonization, which took place in São Paulo in 1999, was approved by Benedict XVI on 16 December 2006.