Ursula_Ledóchowska

Julia Ledóchowska, USAHJ (17 April 1865 – 29 May 1939), religious name Maria Ursula of Jesus, was a religious sister and the foundress of the Ursulines of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus. Ledóchowska was a prolific supporter of Polish independence which she often spoke about at conferences across Scandinavia while she settled in Russia for a time to open convents until her expulsion. But she continued to found convents across Scandinavian countries and even translated a Finnish catechism for the faithful there while later founding her own order which she would later manage from Rome at the behest of Pope Benedict XV.Her death caused a tremendous outpouring of grief across Europe in the places that she had lived in and had visited; before long there were calls for a sainthood process to launch which would open 15 October 1981 (titling her as a Servant of God) despite diocesan investigations happening decades prior. The confirmation of her heroic virtue allowed for her to be named as Venerable in 1983; Pope John Paul II beatified her in Poznań in 1983 and later canonized Ledóchowska in Saint Peter's Square in mid-2003.