Pope Leo XIV has approved decrees recognizing the heroic virtues of six Catholics, moving them to the status of Venerable in the Church’s canonization process.

The Pope authorized the decrees during an audience Saturday, Oct. 24, with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. The dicastery will promulgate the decrees.

The six recognized are Friedrich Kaiser Depel, Oreste Marengo, Margarita Bavosi, Domenico Pogliani, Alessandro Vitetti and Daniele of San Giovanni Rotondo.

Missionary bishops

Friedrich Kaiser Depel, born in Dülmen, Germany, in 1903, became a priest of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and was sent to Peru in 1939. Pope Pius XII appointed him the first territorial prelate of Caravelí in 1957.

After an earthquake struck the region in 1960, Kaiser Depel worked on water supplies and the reconstruction of the cathedral. In 1961, he founded the Pious Union of the Missionary Sisters of Jesus, Word and Victim, a community of local women serving communities in the Andes amid a shortage of priests.

He attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council and was ordained a bishop in 1963. After resigning as prelate in 1971 because of ill health, he continued theological and spiritual formation for the sisters. He died in Lima in 1993.

Oreste Marengo was born in Diano d’Alba, Italy, in 1906 and entered Salesian formation as a teenager. He traveled to northeastern India in 1923, where he assisted village communities while studying philosophy, and was ordained a priest in 1932.

Marengo became the first bishop of Dibrugarh in 1951. He later led the Diocese of Tezpur and served as apostolic administrator of Tura. His ministry included establishing mission centers and assisting people fleeing Pakistan during its war with India. He also brought priests from other parts of India, including Kerala, to respond to the shortage of clergy.

Three other causes

Margarita Bavosi, known as “Luminosa,” was a consecrated laywoman of the Focolare Movement. The decrees also concern Domenico Pogliani, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milan, and Alessandro Vitetti, a priest of the Diocese of Rossano-Cariati.

The sixth new Venerable is Daniele of San Giovanni Rotondo, a Capuchin friar described as a spiritual son of St. Pio of Pietrelcina.