12-2-21 steps toward sainthood

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — A Louisiana girl often called “The Little Cajun Saint” has been moved a second step toward actual sainthood. So have a teacher who evangelized door to door in Louisiana’s Cajun country and a man who worked for decades at a Hansen’s disease colony in Hawaii. During its November meeting in Baltimore, the U.S. Conference of Bishops held voice votes  to advance the cause of beatification and canonization of three candidates. They are Charlene Richard , August Pelafigue of Arnaudville, and Ira Barnes Dutton , or Joseph Dutton, who grew up in Janesville, Wisconsin. Richard was 12 when she died of leukemia in 1959. Pelafigue died in 1977 at age 89. Dutton died in 1931 at age 87.