(ANS - Vatican City)- On 23 February 2016, in the Ordinary Session of Cardinals and Bishops members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints a positive opinion was given, with all affirmative votes, on the reputation of holiness and the practice of heroic virtues of the Servant of God Bishop Stefano Ferrando, Salesian Bishop of Shillong, India, and founder of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians.

By Fr Pierluigi Cameroni, SDB                                                              Postulator General of the Causes of Saints of the Salesian Family

The positio presents in a profound and critical manner the documentary evidence and testimonies regarding the heroic virtues of the Servant of God. The speaker was first Fr Cristoforo Bove, OFM Conv., and, after his death, Fr Zdzisław Kijas, OFM Conv.  Sister Philomena Mathew, former vice-postulator and current superior of the Sisters founded by Bishop Ferrando, Sister Jancy Joseph and Doctor Maria Ludovica Zanet contributed as collaborators.

The Positio consists of a brief presentation by the Rapporteur; the Informatio, which is the theological part in which it is proved that the Servant of God practised all the Christian virtues in a heroic way and the Summarium with the testimony of witnesses and documentary evidence.

On 5 March 2015, the special Congress of Theologian Consultors gave a positive opinion, with all affirmative votes, on the reputation of holiness and the practice of heroic virtues of the Servant of God, Bishop Stefano Ferrando.

Stefano Ferrando was born in Roussillon in 1895 and became a Salesian in 1912. His studies were forcibly interrupted at the outbreak of World War I, in which he served as an officer and earned a silver medal. After ordination in 1923, he left for the Salesian missions of North East India, where he became one of the great pioneers of Salesian missionary activity in that region.

He became bishop of Krishnagar in 1934, just a year after he was transferred to the headquarters of Shillong, which for 35 years was the centre of all his fruitful apostolic and evangelizing action. In 1942 he founded the Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians. In 1969 he returned to Italy and settled at the Salesian Institute of Genoa-Quarto where he died in 1978.

Published 25/02/2016