Fr. John Sullivan declared Venerable by Pope Francis

Pope Francis has raised an Irish Jesuit priest, Father John Sullivan, one step closer to sainthood by authorising a declaration that he lived a life of heroic virtue.

Fr Sullivan who was born in Dublin in 1861 the son of a mixed marriage.  His father, the future Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Sir Edward Sullivan, was a Protestant. His mother, Lady Bessie Josephine Sullivan, was a Catholic.

Fr Sullivan was raised a Protestant but was received into the Catholic Church at the age of 35.

Twelve years later, he was ordained a Jesuit and soon began teaching at Clongowes Wood College near Sallins, Co Kildare, where he spent most of the rest of his life.

He died in 1933 after a lifetime of prayer, asceticism and ministering to the sick and the poor who he used to visit regularly on his bicycle while living in Clongowes.

In 1960 Pope John the Twenty-Third declared him a Servant of God and his remains were transferred from Clongowes to Saint Francis Xavier's Church in Dublin's Gardiner Street.

Above from:  RTE News - Dublin Priest moves closer to Sainthood