VATICAN CITY, OCT 12, 2007 (<A href="http://www.zenit.org ">Zenit.org</A>).- Benedict XVI has approved the beatification rites of 506 more people for this year, the vast majority of them martyrs from the religious persecution in 1930s Spain.
The Vatican released Wednesday a schedule of the liturgical celebrations over which the Pope will preside for October and November, as well as news of the approval of beatifications.
On Sunday, Oct. 21, the Holy Father will travel to Naples for a pastoral visit, during which he will open the 21st International Encounter of Peoples and Religions.
On Monday, Nov. 5, at 11:30 a.m., Benedict XVI will celebrate a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica for the repose of the souls of cardinals and bishops who died during the course of the year.
For this month, the Holy Father approved five rites of beatification.
The Albertina Berkenbrock will be beatified on Oct. 20 in Tubarao, Brazil. The native Brazilian laywoman, born in 1919, was martyred in 1931.
Also in Brazil, the following day, Manuel Gómez González -- a Spanish diocesan priest, born in 1877 -- and Adílio Daronch -- a Brazilian layman, born in 1908 -- will be beatified. Both were martyred in Feijao Miudo in 1924.
Defending the faith
Another martyr, Franz Jägerstätter, will be beatified in Linz, Austria, on Oct. 26. The 36-year-old husband and father of three was decapitated on Aug. 9, 1943, because of his public opposition to Hitler and Nazism.
The beatification of Celina Chludzinska (1833-1913) will be held at St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome on Oct. 27. The widowed native of Poland founded the Congregation of Sisters of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
On Oct. 28, in St. Peter's Square, 498 martyrs of the religious persecution in Spain (1936-1939) will be beatified. It will be the largest ever group of people to be beatification at the same time.
There will be two rites of beatification in November.
On Nov. 11 in Argentina, Ceferino Namuncurá (1886-1905) -- layman and student of the San Francisco de Sales Society -- will be beatified.
One week later, on Nov. 18, the Italian priest Antonio Rosmini, theologian and philosopher, will be beatified in Novara, Italy. Father Rosmini (1797-1855) founded the Institute of Charity and the Sisters of Providence.
In Brazil in December, Lindalva Justo de Oliveira will be beatified. The sister of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul died a martyr defending her virginity in 1993. She was 39.
ZE07101208 - 2007-10-12