By Carmen Elena Villa
ROME, OCT. 9, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Father Francisco Coll will be canonized this Sunday, a promoter and defender of education for women.
Father Coll and Santiago Desiderio Laval were the first Servants of God beatified by Pope John Paul II in April 1979. During the homily that day, the Holy Father described Father Coll as “one of those ecclesial personalities, who in the second half of the 19th century, enriched the Church with new religious foundations.”
The dates of Coll’s birth and death coincide providentially with those of John Paul II, though obviously in different years. He was born May 18, 1812, and died April 2, 1875.
He was born in Catalonia to a large and poor family; several of his siblings died in infancy.
“From childhood he was oriented to the priesthood, and felt an inclination to preaching, recalling to a degree the preaching of the parish priest of his village,” the postulator of his cause, Father Vito Tomás Gómez García, told ZENIT.
So in 1830 he entered the Order of Preachers in the monastery of Gerona, where he made his solemn profession and was ordained to the diaconate.
In 1835 the expulsion of religious obliged him to live outside the monastery. “The life of religious was left up in the air,” his postulator explained. “The option left to religious was to wait and see if the storm blew over, if the political situation would clear up and they could rejoin their monasteries.”
Francisco Coll was ordained a priest in clandestinity. At first he had to exercise his ministry as if he was a diocesan priest, as the political situation kept him from being able to live in a monastery.
“Father Coll was a real angel of peace and reconciliation between the different political groups, the cloth for many tears, the aid of so many families, children, widows, parents. He had to find the strength to lift the spirit of those people and of the population,” explained Father Gómez.
The priest went across the different regions of Catalonia preaching, and discovered that one of the evils of the world is the lack of education, especially for women.
“In face of this need, he founded the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (La Annunciata), who continued his evangelizing work in all those areas where there were no schools,” the postulator said. “He established several educational centers with a Christian orientation of life.”
The future saint was struck blind in 1869 and suffered the periodic loss of his mental faculties. He died in Barcelona on April 2, 1875, where his remains are kept in the congregation’s motherhouse.
At the time of his death, there were already close to 50 communities of the Dominicans of La Annunciata.
At present, this order has close to 1,200 sisters on four continents. Their charism is education, giving much importance to doctrine and theology.
Sister Rosa Di Tullio, superior of this community in Rome, told ZENIT that the canonization of the founder met with “several difficulties” but that “today, we are delighted at the universal Church’s recognition of someone who for a long time we have regarded as a saint.”
One of the order’s principle apostolates is migrants, which brings the nuns to offer their services along many border areas of the world.
Sister Di Tullio characterized her founder as “a Dominican in every sense of the word because he was a great preacher in difficult times. He did not withdraw in face of difficulties because he had great love. He is a modern saint.”
His writings have been compiled in two books, “La hermosa rosa” (The Beautiful Rose) and “La escala del cielo” (The Ladder of Heaven).
