On May 22 Pope Leo XIV received in audience Card. Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery of the Causes of Saints, and authorized the publication of the decree regarding the heroic virtues of the Servant of God María Ana Alberdi Echezarreta (born Maria de la Concezione Cruz), abbess of the Franciscan Conceptionist Sisters of the “La Latina” monastery of Madrid, born in Azcoitia, diocese of San Sebastián, Spain, on May 3, 1912, and died in Madrid on November 27, 1998.
The Venerable Maria Anna Alberdi sanctified herself through the profession of religious vows as a nun of the monastery of the Franciscan Conceptionist Sisters called La Latina of Madrid.
Orphaned at an early age of both parents, she lived with her uncles, in an intensely Christian environment. After some formative experiences in religious communities, she joined the Franciscan Conceptionists of Madrid. The outbreak of civil war in July 1936 forced the nuns to leave the monastery to take refuge in a safer place. The common life re-established, Sister Maria Anna was nominated mistress of novices in 1947 and was elected abbess for the first time in 1953. Much loved and esteemed by the sisters, she was always re-elected in successive chapters, animating and directing the monastery for 34 years, always confirmed with a special indult of the Holy See, with the only interruption of three years (1984-87), during which time she served as vicaress. In 1963, Mother Maria Anna was elected president of the Franciscan Conceptionist Federation of Castille, composed of about three hundred fifty sisters.
The Servant of God exercised her mission of governing with great charity toward her sisters, with wisdom and prudence in the face of necessary adjustments of the cloister life desired by the Second Vatican Council, with strength of mind and spirit of initiative for the good management of the monastery, ever willing to help materially and spiritually those who asked her for help.
She also had the great merit of being able to put to good use her rich spiritual experience in the revision of the Constitutions of the Franciscan Conceptionist Order, proposing to her religious family the originality of the founding charism, both Franciscan and Marian. Mother Maria Anna had the joy of being able to live, in spiritual communion with all the Conceptionist monasteries of the world, the long-awaited canonization of the foundress, Saint Beatriz de Silva y Meneses, celebrated by Pope Paul VI on October 3, 1976, in the Vatican Basilica. In 1993 she celebrated 60 years of cloister life. In June 1998 she contracted her last and painful illness, accepted with full love on the cross, and on November 27 she died, surrounded by a great reputation for holiness.
The Cause of Beatification was initiated in 2007 by the Postulator General of the Order of Friars Minor, Fr. Luca de Rosa, OFM.