At the end of the general audience on November 12, 2025, Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to Blessed Mother Eliswa Vakayil (1831-1913), who was beatified in India on November 8. He also mentioned Saint Josaphat, whose memory the Church celebrates this Wednesday and who is the patron saint of Ukrainian Catholics.
On Saturday, in the city of Cochin, Sister Eliswa Vakayil, who lived in the 19th century and founded an order of nuns, was beatified.
Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to "her courageous commitment to the emancipation of poor girls," seeing her as "a source of inspiration for all those who work, in the Church and in society, for the dignity of women."
Known by her religious name, Mother Eliswa of the Blessed Virgin Mary, this Indian woman from Kerala is the founder of the Congregation of the Third Order of Discalced Carmelites, now known as the Teresian Carmelite Sisters.
After being married, she formed this religious community with her daughter and sister a few years after becoming a widow, thus forming the initial nucleus of a new congregation within the Syro-Malabar Church, an Indian Eastern Church attached to Rome.
Tribute to a Ukrainian saint
The Pope also highlighted the liturgical memory of Saint Josaphat (1580-1623), whom the Catholic Church commemorates on November 12. This Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop, who was deeply committed to bringing the Orthodox Church into communion with the Catholic Church but radically opposed to all violence, died a martyr in what is now Belarus.
Leo XIV affirmed that the saint "lost his life because of his tireless zeal for the unity of the Church."
Saint Josaphat is the patron saint of Ukrainian Catholics and a central figure in the Greek Catholic Church. Ukrainian priests in Rome are trained at the Pontifical Ukrainian College of Saint Josaphat, which includes the Church of Saint Josaphat on the Janiculum Hill, one of Ukraine's national churches in the Eternal City.
