Venerated for more than a century in Venezuela, Dr José Gregorio Hernández was officially canonised on Sunday, October 19, in St Peter’s Square, Vatican City.

It was one of Pope Francis’s final official acts before his death earlier this year. On February 24, from his hospital bed in Rome, Pope Francis had formally granted sainthood to Hernández, the Venezuelan physician revered since the early 20th century. His successor, Pope Leo XIV, presided over the canonisation mass, marking the culmination of a century-long wait for Venezuelans.

Although the Catholic Church waited until 2025 to officially recognize the man known across Latin America as the “doctor of the poor,” Hernández has long been regarded as a saint in Venezuela. Streets and hospitals bear his name, murals of his likeness adorn the walls of Caracas, Venezuela, and many Venezuelans keep devotional images of the gentle-faced physician, with his neatly trimmed moustache and signature hat, in their homes. In hospital corridors across the country, doctors and patients alike pray to Hernández in moments of desperation. Numerous miracles have been attributed to him not only in Venezuela but throughout South America.

Doctor for the Poor, Ahead of His Time in Science

Born on October 26, 1864, in a small village in the Andes mountains, Hernández completed part of his medical studies in Europe. Between 1888 and 1891, he studied in Paris and Berlin, learning modern medical techniques from leading scientific minds of the Belle Époque.

Upon returning to Venezuela, he became a professor of histology and introduced the advanced medical methods he had mastered abroad. He is believed to have been the first Venezuelan scientist to use a microscope. He also founded the country’s first bacteriology laboratory and published about 15 scientific papers.

Despite his contributions to science, Hernández became best known for his religious devotion and humanitarian compassion, which endeared him to Venezuela’s poor. Twice he sought to join monastic life but had to withdraw because of health issues. Instead, he devoted all his free time to caring for those in need.

He was known for carrying a small medical bag on his rounds: Those who could pay for a consultation slipped money into it, and those who could not simply took what they needed. “He possessed a kind of knowledge that no academy can teach: the science of being loved,” one of his colleagues said.

During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, he was on the front lines, tending to the sick and destitute.

His sudden death on June 29, 1919, at age 54, embodied the selflessness that defined his life. After leaving a pharmacy where he had purchased medicine with his own money for a poor patient, he was struck by a vehicle and killed. His death sparked national mourning, and thousands attended his funeral. “Before the coffin of José Gregorio Hernández, we all felt the desire to be good,” wrote Venezuelan novelist Rómulo Gallegos.

Since then, public devotion to Hernández — now Saint Hernández — has never waned.

Two Miracles After Death

The first formal petitions for Hernández’s canonisation were submitted to the Vatican in 1949. Decades later, when Pope John Paul II visited Venezuela in 1996, about five million people, ie, nearly 20% of the country’s population, signed a petition urging his sainthood.

Under canon law, sainthood requires at least two confirmed miracles attributed to the individual after death. The first miracle linked to Hernández occurred in 2017, when a young Venezuelan girl who had been shot in the head during a robbery survived without any neurological damage, a recovery that astonished surgeons. Her mother had prayed to Hernández for help, and the Catholic Church officially recognised the event as a miracle.

Three years later, in 2020, Pope Francis beatified Hernández, further strengthening Venezuelans’ devotion to the physician known as the “doctor of the poor.” His remains were moved to a reliquary in the Church of La Candelaria in Caracas, and 160 additional reliquaries containing fragments of his bones were distributed across the country for veneration.

A second miracle followed in 2022, when a Venezuelan woman living in Miami was inexplicably cured of a terminal illness, again attributed to the intercession of Hernández.

For Venezuela’s 28 million citizens, this recognition elevated Hernández — now Saint Hernández, the first saint in the nation’s history — to a lasting symbol of faith, compassion, and healing.

On every October 26 since his death, masses are celebrated across Venezuela in his honour. But this year, the faithful venerated not only a national hero but an official saint.

This story was translated from JIM, part of the Medscape Professional Network.