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José Gregorio Hernández
Venezuelan physician and Franciscan tertiary, saint in the Catholic Church
Feast: 26 October (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
The Vatican record
- 19 June 2020 — Miracle through their intercession approved (decree list, 2020)
Who they were
José Gregorio Hernández was born at Isnotú, in the state of Trujillo, Venezuela, on 26 October 1864, the second of seven children. A physician, he was sent by the President of Venezuela to Paris to study microbiology, bacteriology and physiology, and brought that learning home to Venezuelan medicine; he cared so much for the poorest that he was called 'the doctor of the poor'.
He died in Caracas on 29 June 1919, struck by a car while taking medicine to a sick person.
The miracles
Yaxury Solórzano, a ten-year-old girl — San Fernando de Apure, Venezuela — March 2017
On 10 March 2017 a girl riding with her father on a motorbike was shot in the head from two metres away in a robbery, and her condition deteriorated rapidly. After prayers to José Gregorio she recovered. On 9 January 2020 the Vatican's medical board found the healing rapid, complete, lasting and inexplicable by current medicine.
For his canonisation the Archbishop of Caracas and bishops across Venezuela and beyond asked the Pope in 2024 to proceed on the strength of his enormous and lasting devotion; he was canonised with Carmen Rendiles as Venezuela's first saints.
Why that counted as sanctity
The case of Yaxury Solórzano, a ten-year-old girl was examined by the Church's doctors and theologians and approved as a miracle on 19 June 2020, opening the way to beatification. Canonisation followed on 19 October 2025 by Leo XIV.
Connected on this site
- Carmen Rendiles Saint“With St José Gregorio Hernández, canonised the same day, she was one of the first two Venezuelan saints.” — this site's research
- Laura Evangelista Alvarado Cardozo Blessed“During her life she was contemporaries with José Gregorio Hernández.” — Wikipedia
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography of St José Gregorio Hernández, with the miracle
- Rome Reports - Venezuela's first two canonised saints
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Wikidata Q774253 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — José Gregorio Hernández (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.