Venerated in Roman Catholic Church Attributes Nun's habit Patronage Teacher | Feast 26 February Beatified 18 April 1993 | |
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Died 26 February 1889, Olesa de Montserrat, Spain | ||
Saint Paula Montal Fornés (11 October 1799 – 26 February 1889) was a Spanish Roman Catholic religious sister. Fornés established the Sisters of the Pious Schools and assumed the new name of "Paula of Saint Joseph Calasanz" in honor of Saint Joseph Calasanz after she made her solemn profession. She served as an educator in Barcelona and founded schools for people in the area.
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Fornés was beatified on 18 April 1993 and was canonized on 25 November 2001.
Life
Paula Montal Fornés was born on 11 October 1799 as the eldest of five daughters of Ramon and Vicenta Montal Fornés. Her father died when she was ten and as a result of this she had to work as a lace-maker and as a seamstress in order to help raise her siblings. She extended this care to other children in her parish.
At the age of 30 she desired to devote herself to God and both she and her friend Inés Busquets opened a school in Gerona to provide an education and a spiritual education to all those who needed it most. The school became a quick success and she was able to establish a college in mid-1842 and another in 1846. She established her own religious order at the beginning of 1847 in order to help staff and manage the schools. She assumed the name of "Paula of Saint Joseph Calasanz" at this same time as she received the habit with Busquets and also with Felicia Clavell and Francisca de Domingo. The order received its formal approval from Pope Pius IX in 1860.
The presence of the Piarist priests Jacinto Felíu and Agustín Casanovas proved to be to her benefit for their assistance allowed her to achieve the appropriate canonical structure of her order. She founded a total of seven schools in such cities as Figueras (1829), Blanes (1854), Igualda (1849) and Masnou (1852). She helped to found four others in places such as Sóller (1857).
She died in 1889 in Barcelona.
Canonization
The sainthood process commenced in Barcelona under Pope Pius XII on 3 May 1957 in a process that saw the accumulation of all documentation that pertained to her life as well as testimonies. This process - which granted her the posthumous title Servant of God - concluded all of its work on 12 June 1959. The Positio - the dossier on her life and virtues - was submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome in 1987 despite the fact that the diocesan process was not ratified until 25 June 1987.
On 28 November 1988 she was proclaimed to be Venerable after Pope John Paul II recognized her life of heroic virtue.
The miracle required for her beatification was subject to a diocesan tribunal and received the decree of formal ratification in 1991 in order for the miracle to be evaluated in Rome. John Paul II approved it on 21 December 1992 and beatified her on 18 April 1993.
The second miracle required for sainthood was also investigated and was said to have occurred in September 1993 to a girl at the age of eight named Natalia García Mora. The process was ratified in 1996 and John Paul II approved it in mid-2000. He canonized her on 25 November 2001.