Church in Spain firmly behind cause for beatification of Queen Isabel

Madrid, Spain, Jan 18, 2004 / 22:00 pm

Since last year the Catholic Church in Spain has been sponsoring a series of activities in support of the cause for beatification of Queen Isabel, who died 500 years ago next November 26.

A commission of the Archdiocese of Valladolid responsible for the cause has sent the Pope 33 volumes, which include over 105,000 letters sent from Spain and Latin America requesting the beatification of Queen Isabel.

In November of 2003, the Archbishop of Valladolid gave Latin American ambassadors a replica of the Queen’s will, in which she exhorts her descendants to maintain the unity of faith in Spain and to defend the rights of American Indians.  Meanwhile at the Spanish embassy in the Vatican a series of conferences on Queen Isabel which began last October will be concluding next week.

In addition to these initiatives, the French writer Jean Dumont has just published an Italian version of his book, “The Incomparable Queen Isabel the Catholic,” which outlines the Christian virtues exhibited by the Spanish monarch.

The documentation being collected for the cause, which the Archdiocese of Valladolid began in 1958, includes testimony of two miracles attributed to the Queen: the complete cure of pancreatic cancer in an American, and the healing of a brain hemorrhage of a Spanish priest.