Bl. Peter Donders

Peter Donders was born in 1809 in Tilburg, in the Netherlands, the son of a weaver. Poverty delayed his studies, and he was not ordained until he was thirty-two.

In 1842 he went to Suriname, then the Dutch colony on the north coast of South America. He spent the rest of his life there, ministering to enslaved people and, from 1856, to people with leprosy at the Batavia colony. In 1867 he joined the Redemptorists, a congregation devoted to preaching to the poor.

He died at Batavia in 1887 after nearly forty-five years in the tropics. His tomb is in the cathedral of Paramaribo. John Paul II beatified him in 1982.

Peter Donders was beatified in 1982.

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