page_title: Frei Galvão
section_title: Mysticism
hierarchical_section_title: Frei Galvão / Mysticism
caption_attribution_description: Português: Cerimônia de canonização do frade brasileiro Frei Galvão celebrada pelo papa Bento XVI no Campo de Marte em São Paulo, Brasil. (fragment)
context_page_description: Anthony of St. Ann Galvão, O.F.M., commonly known in Brazil as Frei Galvão, was a Brazilian friar of the Franciscan Order. One of the best-known religious figures in colonial Brazil, renowned for his healing powers, Galvão was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on May 11, 2007, becoming the first Brazilian-born saint. He was the second Brazilian to be proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church, after Austro-Hungarian-born Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus, C.I.I.C., canonized in 2002.
context_section_description: Galvão was a man of great and intense prayer, and mystic phenomena attributed to him include telepathy, premonition and levitation. He was reportedly in two different places at the same time in order to take care of sick or dying people who had asked for his help.
  Many sought Galvão for his reputed healing powers, particularly when medical resources were expensive or unavailable. Galvão became known for his "paper pills": he wrote a Latin phrase from the Little Office of Our Lady ("After childbirth thou didst remain a Virgin: O Mother of God, intercede for us")in a piece of paper, rolled it like a pill, and gave it to  Once he gave the paper pill to a young woman in excruciating pain from kidney stones: the pain ceased immediately after she consumed it, and she expelled a large amount of renal calculus. On other occasions, he gave it to women suffering during difficult childbirths. After Galvão gave a paper pill to a man with such a suffering wife, the child was quickly born without further complications. The story of the miracle pill spread, and Galvão had to teach the Recollect Sisters to make them, which they still do nowadays. They are handed out for free to some 300 faithful who request them daily.
  On October 25, 1998, Galvão became the first Brazilian-born person to be beatified by the Vatican, having been declared Venerable a year earlier, on March 8, 1997. On May 11, 2007, he became the first Brazilian-born person canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, during Pope Benedict XVI's five-day visit to Brazil. The open-air ceremony, which lasted over two hours in the Campo de Marte Military Airport, near downtown São Paulo, drew 800,000 people, according to official estimates. Galvão was the first saint canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in a ceremony held outside the Vatican City. His proclamation as a saint came after the Catholic Church accepted  that two miracles had taken place.
  According to the Church, the cases of Sandra Grossi de Almeida and Daniella Cristina da Silva are miracles effected through the prayers of Galvão. After taking one of the paper pills, Almeida, who had a uterine malformation that should have made it impossible for her to carry a child for more than four months, gave birth to baby boy Enzo. Galvão's pills are also certified by the Church with the healing, in 1990, of Daniella Cristina da Silva, a four-year-old girl suffering from what doctors considered incurable hepatitis. Doctors, and some Catholic clergy, have dismissed the pills as placebos. The Church recommends that only terminally ill patients take the pills.
caption: Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Holy Mass at the canonization of Frei Galvão in São Paulo, Brazil on 11 May 2007
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