(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 24.10.2024).- On Tuesday afternoon, October 24,Pope Francis received in audience Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. In that audience, the Holy Father authorized the Dicastery’s Prefect to promulgate the Decree regarding the miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Maria Antonia of Saint Joseph (in the world: Antonia de Paz y Figueroa), known as Mamá Antula, Foundress of the House of Spiritual Exercises of Buenos Aires.
Blessed Mamá Antula, consecrated lay woman, was born in Silipica, in the Argentine Province of Santiago del Estero, in 1730; she died in Buenos Aires, Argentina on March 7, 1799. She dedicated her life to the promotion of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Over eight years, she offered them to 70,000 people.
The miracle attributed to the Blessed is the inexplicable survival by natural causes of a man with “ischemic stroke with hemorrhagic infarction in several areas, profound coma, septicemia, resistant septic shock, with multiorgan failure.” The miracle occurred in the Santa Fe Hospital on September 14, 2023.