María Berenice Duque
Colombian Catholic nun
The Vatican record
- 12 February 2019 — Heroic virtue declared — title Venerable (decree list, 2019)
- 13 October 2021 — Miracle through their intercession approved (decree list, 2021)
Who they were
María Berenice Duque Hencker was born at Salamina, in Caldas, Colombia, on 14 August 1898, the eldest of eighteen children, five of whom gave their lives to God. She founded the Little Sisters of the Annunciation to help those pushed to the edges of society and meet people's concrete needs, and later other works, among them the Afro-Colombian Missionaries in 1957 for young Black women from Colombia's coasts. Her sisters went overseas as missionaries. She died in Medellín on 25 July 1993.
The miracles
A young man — Medellín, Colombia — 12 April 2004
A young man born in 1987 had suffered from the age of seven from a severe, progressive failure of the body's automatic nervous system, with fainting fits many times a day, failing organs and little movement; he used a wheelchair. A Little Sister of the Annunciation had given him a medal and prayer card of Mother Berenice. On 12 April 2004, praying to her, he felt a strong cold through his whole body and saw two rays of light come down; he got up from his wheelchair by himself, and from then on, against every expectation, he walked again, ate by himself and recovered.
Why that counted as sanctity
The case of a young man was examined by the Church's doctors and theologians and approved as a miracle on 13 October 2021, opening the way to beatification.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography of Blessed María Berenice Duque Hencker, with the miracle
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Wikidata Q62587944 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Maria Berenice Hencker (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.