Father Immanuel Lopez, a Catholic priest, born in May 1908 and brought up in the heart of Kochi, was declared a Servant of God here at his home Chathiath Mount Carmel parish on Wednesday by Varappuzha archbishop Joseph Kalathiparambil during a concelebrated mass.
A person is declared Servant of God by the Catholic Church to indicate that the process of her or his being possibly declared a saint (canonisation) is on. It is the first of the four steps to canonisation. In the next step the Servant of God will be declared Venerable after which she or he may be beatified and declared Blessed and finally a Saint depending on the results of the inquiries by the Church authorities appointed for the purpose or the cause. The process of declaring a person a saint is directly supervised by the Congregation for the Causesof Saints under the Catholic Church.
