Guanella canonization brings local outpouring

A Delaware County man's recovery from a brain injury elevated Luigi Guanella to sainthood last month, but Maureen Kupniewski knows other miracles happen in the Italian priest's name all the time.

Take her brother, 58-year-old Anthony Fox, a resident of the Cardinal Krol Center for disabled residents and formerly of Don Guanella Village, named after the man who devoted himself to the care of widows, orphans, and the disabled. Fox was recently diagnosed with liver cancer and spent 41 days in a hospital on a ventilator.

Of course, his family prayed to Guanella.

"He's fully recovered," said his happy sister, who was with her brother and husband, Rich, at a Mass of Thanksgiving on Sunday for the canonization of St. Guanella at St. Pius X Church in Broomall.

"This is such a wonderful, blessed event," she said before the start of Mass, presided over by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, the newly installed head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The Mass drew several hundred faithful, including many residents of Don Guanella, Divine Providence Village, and St. Edmond's Home, which are run by Catholic Social Services for people with developmental disabilities. Many were in wheelchairs; others walked hand in hand with relatives who had come to give thanks not only for St. Guanella, but for the care their loved ones received.

"They just take such good care of the clients, and it's such a loving environment," said Marge Haelle of Edgmont, who held hands with her daughter, Elena, 34, who lives at Divine Providence and participates in a workshop at the Cardinal Krol Center. "It's such a privilege to be part of this event."

Chaput said Philadelphia was privileged to be the place where St. Guanella's miracle occurred and noted that Guanella was a contemporary and friend of Pope Pius X, also a saint. Saints, he noted, "often grow up together, they come in bunches. The easiest way to become a saint is to have a friend who is a saint."

Then he encouraged everyone to act saintly, particularly husbands and wives. "Husbands, that's your job - be a saint for your wives. Wives, be a saint for your husbands," he said.

He also said the difference between a saint and "you and me is they stayed faithful. Most of us stopped somewhere along the line in our fidelity to God."

Guanella was one of three men, all founders of religious orders, canonized Oct. 23 in Rome, bringing Pope Benedict XVI's total to 37 during his 61/2 years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church. In Guanella's case, the Vatican concluded that William "Billy" Glisson Jr.'s recovery from a 2002 in-line skating accident that smashed the back of his head was a miracle.

Doctors believed Glisson, then 21, was doomed, and he spent two weeks in a coma. But a family friend who was a former director of Don Guanella Village gave Glisson's mother two encased bone fragments of Guanella's that she had received years earlier from a priest as she recovered from a car accident.

Donna Glisson put one fragment in her son's hospital wristband and the other in her pocket and prayed. So did the entire Don Guanella community. Seven months after his accident, Glisson was back at work at his family's roofing and insulation business.

Glisson, now 30, carried the bread and wine up the steps of the basilica in the ceremony, watched by his Glen Mills family.

The miracle came 47 years after Guanella, who founded the Servants of Charity and the Daughters of St. Mary, was credited with curing two elderly Italian women at a home run by the Daughters of St. Mary.

For Brother Robert Niemeyer, a member of the Servants of Charity who works at Don Guanella, the canonization "is a joy. It raises us up to follow in our founder's footsteps to help the poor, the marginalized in our population," he said.

Paul Schwerdtfeger of Ardmore took his son, Dennis, 42, a resident of Cardinal Krol and a former Special Olympics weightlifter. They wouldn't have missed it for anything.

"We've been praying for this for a long time," he said.