Bl. László Batthyány-Strattmann

László Batthyány-Strattmann was born in 1870 into an old Hungarian noble family. As a boy he said he would grow up to be a doctor who treated poor people for free. His father wanted him to manage the family estates, so he first studied agriculture. He did not begin medicine until 1896, and qualified in 1900.

In 1898 he married Countess Maria Teresa Coreth. They had thirteen children. The family went to Mass together every day. Afterwards he gave the children a short lesson in the faith and set each of them one act of kindness to do that day; in the evening they talked about how it had gone.

In 1902 he opened a small hospital at Kittsee, which grew during the First World War. Later he moved to Körmend in Hungary and specialised in eye surgery. He treated poor patients without charge, and often asked them only to pray for him. He died in Vienna in 1931 after a long, painful illness. John Paul II beatified him in 2003.

László Batthyány-Strattmann was beatified in 2003.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.