‘Its an ethical option, because you are playing with not just your health and life, but also with the lives of others,’ the Pope said while urging everyone to get the Covid-19 vaccine
The nun from Kerala was canonised along with English Cardinal John Henry Newman, Swiss laywoman Marguerite Bays, Brazilian Sister Dulce Lopes and Italian Sister Giuseppina Vannini.
New York's Bishop John Jenik was suspended in 2018 pending a Church investigation into the alleged assault, which reportedly took place in the 1980s while the American was pastor of a Bronx parish.
Under the new measure, every diocese around the world is obliged by June 2020 to create a system for the reporting of sexual abuse by clerics, the use of child pornography and cover-ups of abuse.
The papal admission followed a rare outcry last week from the Vatican's women's magazine over the sexual abuse of nuns, leaving them feeling forced to have abortions or raise children not recognised by their priest fathers.
Pope Francis is urging politicians of all faiths to safeguard the rights of the unborn and is exhorting abortion opponents to also assure that children are born into a world where they can live with dignity.