Pope Francis has advanced the Causes of three women and recognised the martyrdom of 14 religious Sisters who were killed during the Spanish Civil War.
The Pope formally recognised a miracle needed for the canonisation of Blessed Marguerite Bays, a lay woman from Switzerland known for her spirituality in the face of great physical suffering and for bearing the stigmata of Christ.
Born in 1815, she grew up helping the peasant farmers in her small village and became a professed member of the Secular Franciscan Order.
