VATICAN CITY - People seem to enjoy finding the shortcomings of candidates for sainthood like Blessed Junipero Serra, but they should ask themselves if they would have his generosity and courage to leave everything behind to care for the poor and bring them the Gospel, Pope Francis said.

Despite growing resistance from some Native Americans and U.S. Catholics, the Vatican on May 2 will host an event to celebrate the life of Junípero Serra, the Spanish missionary priest whom Pope Francis plans to canonize during his upcoming American tour.

RIMOUSKI, QUE. - A  teacher from Quebec's Lower St. Lawrence region who believed that "schools were the vestibules to the Church" was beatified April 26 by Cardinal Angelo Amato, the papal legate who came from Rome to Rimouski to proclaim her Blessed.

VATICAN CITY - More than a century after he first set foot in North America, the story of a little-known Canadian blessed and martyr of the Soviet regime is starting to come out of the shadows.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has approved a miracle so that, for the first time, a married couple can be canonized together.

Oscar Romero: Love Must Win Out by Kevin Clarke (Novalis, 164 pages, softcover, $14.95).

The life and death of Archbishop Oscar Romero raises questions as relevant to Catholics today as they were when Romero’s native El Salvador was struggling through years of violence and injustice. How and when should Church officials take sides in the political affairs of nations? What brings a person of privilege to a radical change of heart? How can such a person come to be in solidarity with the poor?

VATICAN CITY - After decades of debate within the Church, Pope Francis formally recognized that Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was killed "in hatred of the faith" and not for purely political reasons.

FRASCATI, Italy - Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, "lit a new light in the Church's journey toward unity," Pope Francis said.

WASHINGTON - Surprising even the people who have been promoting the sainthood cause of Blessed Junipero Serra, Pope Francis announced Jan. 15 that in September, he hopes to canonize the 18th-century Spanish Franciscan who founded a string of missions across Mexico and California.

VATICAN CITY - A panel of theologians advising the Vatican's Congregation for Saints' Causes voted unanimously to recognize the late Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero as a martyr, according to the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has advanced the sainthood cause of of Marie-Elisabeth Turgeon, the Canadian founder of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.

SEOUL, South Korea - Pope Francis placed 124 Korean martyrs on the last step toward sainthood in a beatification Mass Aug. 16 that brought elation to the 800,000 people in attendance.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis formally announced six men and women would be made saints Nov. 23, the feast of Christ the King. He made the announcement during a morning "ordinary public consistory," a meeting of cardinals and promoters of the sainthood causes that formally ends the sainthood process.

VATICAN CITY - Despite fevered speculation in the media and across Latin America, the Vatican says Pope Francis has not advanced slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero toward sainthood — at least, not yet.

VATICAN CITY - "They call me Holy Father and that is what I must be," the future St. John XXIII wrote in his diary.