(Devin Watkins/Vatican News) — Pope Francis held an audience on Wednesday with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, and authorized him to promulate decrees related to the causes of 21 men and women.
The Pope officially recognized the martyrdom of Archbishop Eduard Profittlich, SJ, who served as the Apostolic Administrator of Estonia from 1931 until his death in 1942, clearing the way for his beatification.
Soviet Union authorities arrested the German-born Archbishop a year after invading Estonia, and he was deported to a prison in Siberia and sentenced to death. Archbishop Profittlic died from exposure in Kirov prison on February 22, 1942 before his sentence could be carried out.
