Nun a Shoe-in for Sainthood

The year 2012 may be Raoul Wallenberg Year, but that’s not stopping other “Righteous Gentiles” from being honoured for their Herculean efforts in having saved Jews during the Holocaust.

Information pertaining to the life of Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough, who passed away in 1966, has been sent to the Vatican where it will be studied by historians and theologians for her possible sainthood, a case originally opened in 2010 by the Diocese of Rome, along with Sister Katherine Flanagan.

If the two London-born nuns are confirmed as having lived lives of “heroic virtue”, the Pope will declare them to be “Venerable” before a search for two miracles will begin to declare them Blessed, and then, ultimately, saints.

Mother Riccarda saved the lives of more than 60 Jews when she hid them from the Nazis in her Rome convent, the Casa di Santa Brigida.

“When I tell people at Mass that that her cause is going forward I’m sure that they will be overjoyed,” said Father Ray Blake, St. Mary’s parish priest.

Sister Katherine was a leading proponent of opening Bridgettine convents around the world 400 years after the Reformation nearly wiped out the order.

“It is amazing to have someone in your family who was so revered by everybody … the Bridgettines obviously think that she is going to become a saint,” said a proud Judith Whitehead, a nice of Sister Katherine.