Usually it is for Vatican (read The Pope) to canonize any persons by declaring him/her as Saint and that too years after the concerned individual leave this world. The last Indians to be canonized were Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Mother Euphrasia (November 2014 ) and Joseph Vaz of Goa in 2015.
Catholic activists in the social media did not wait for any communication from Vatican or any papal order before uploading the 2021 calendar featuring the picture of Sister Abhaya and they themselves canonized her by designating her as Saint Abhaya.
The calendar has a prayer to Sister Abhaya who was found murdered in the Convent in Kottayam where she was a novitiate trainee on March 27, 1992. “Please pray to God Almighty for the world to be saved from all kinds of injustice, violence, economic and sexual exploitations and murders,” said the prayer printed along with the calendar.
The Catholic community believes in praying through the Saints who, they believe, have direct access with the Almighty. The Canonization is a long drawn out process and it takes decades, if not centuries, for the Pope to declare the person as Saint.
