Paraguay's Faithful Celebrate First Female Beatification  

Paraguay has formally beatified a woman for the first time in a huge ceremony honoring Carmelite nun Maria Felicia de Jesus Sacramentado, better known as 'Chiquitunga.'

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Thousands gathered on Saturday in the Pablo Rojas stadium in the capital, Asunsion, for a mass presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato, special envoy of Pope Francis and prefect for the Congregation of the Cause of Saints.

Cardinal Amato read aloud a biography of Chiquitunga, saying: "She was a person who responded 100 percent to the call of her baptism and her faith was solid. 

"The witnesses speak of an immense, convinced, expansive faith that manifested daily in her obedience, her exquisite charity and in asking for forgiveness for her own mistakes and those of others."

Among the attendees was 15-year-old Angel Ramon Dominguez, whose miraculous 'resurrection' was considered one of the main grounds for the nun's beatification.

Dominguez was stillborn in August 2002 and the attending obstetrician, Blanca Duarte, appealed directly to Chiquitunga for help.
"I asked 'Chiqui' for intervention; I asked for mercy for the baby's deaf-mute parents and that they could have him (their son) in their arms," Duarte said. "I did not know how I was going to explain to his parents that their son had been born without life."

Thirty minutes later, Angel having already been declared dead, "the baby took a deep breath and his heart began to beat with all its rhythm, and I became aware that this baby was alive through the intersection of Chiquitunga," the doctor said.

Born on January 2, 1925, Maria Felicia Guggiari Echeverria joined Catholic Action at the age of 16. At 30, she joined the Carmelitas Descalzas as a nun, where she was renamed María Felicia de Jesus Sacramentado, but died of hepatitis four years later in 1959.

Cardinal Amato said Chiquitunga – so-called because of her small stature – "was always available to collaborate, help, for harmony." Because of her willingness to help the elderly, the poor and the sick, "some witnesses compare her with Mother Teresa of Calcutta."