Pope signs decree making José Gregorio Hernández, 'doctor of the poor,' Venezuela's first saint

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A man revered by millions as the “doctor of the poor” will be the first saint from Venezuela after Pope Francis approved a decree Tuesday.

A date for the canonization of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández, who died in 1919, has not been set. The Vatican in a statement said Francis also decided to convene a formal meeting of cardinals to set the dates for future canonizations, but it was not immediately scheduled.

“This historic event, long awaited by the Venezuelan people, is a recognition of the exemplary life and heroic virtues of a man who dedicated his existence to alleviating human suffering and transmitting a message of love and hope,” the Archdiocese of Caracas said in a statement. “The Catholic Church recognizes his life of holiness, accompanied by a universal devotion, which today allows him to be elevated to the altar.”

Hernández was beatified in April 2021 after the church certified a miracle in the case of a girl who completely recovered after being shot in the head in 2017.

Hernández, born on Oct. 26, 1864, in the western Venezuela town of Isnotu, never married and graduated as a doctor in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, in 1888. He was convinced that science was one of the main ways to get the South American country out of misery and went on to establish two research institutions as well as teach several classes at the Central University of Venezuela, the nation’s oldest and largest.

He traveled to Europe to study and then to become a Catholic monk, but his fragile health was affected by Italy’s cold and humid weather. He returned to Venezuela to recover and stayed permanently.

On June 29, 1919, Hernández was hit by a car while crossing a street shortly after picking up medicine at a pharmacy to take to an impoverished woman. His death was caused when his head hit the edge of a sidewalk. An estimated 20,000 people participated in his funeral procession, about a quarter of the population of Caracas at the time.

In 1986, the Vatican declared Hernández “venerable,” which means that he led an exemplary Christian life. But to achieve sanctity, teams of doctors, theologians and cardinals must approve miracles attributed to him.

When Pope John Paul II, now a saint, visited Venezuela in 1996, he received a petition signed by 5 million people — at the time, almost one in four Venezuelans — asking him to declare Hernández a saint.

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A cyclist rides past a mural depicting Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, third from left, and other residents of La Pastora neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela, after Pope Francis approved the canonization of the physician as Venezuela's first saint on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

Devotees of folklore spiritual deity Maria Lionza smoke cigars in front the memorial dedicated to Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, on the street where he died when hit by a car in 1919, in La Pastora neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, after Pope Francis approved the canonization of the physician as Venezuela's first saint. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

Commuters wait for transport next to a mural depicting Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez in La Pastora neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, after Pope Francis approved the canonization of the physician as Venezuela's first saint on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

A mural dedicated to Dr. José Gregorio Hernández blankets a building in the La Pastora neighborhood where he once practiced medicine, in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. Pope Francis on Tuesday approved the canonization of the physician, making him Venezuela's first saint. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

Devotees of folklore spiritual deity Maria Lionza visit the memorial dedicated to Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, on the street where he died when hit by a car in 1919, in La Pastora neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, after Pope Francis approved the canonization of the physician as Venezuela's first saint. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

A woman embraces a statue of José Gregorio Hernandez, the physician known as the "doctor of the poor", in Valencia, Venezuela, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. Pope Francis on Tuesday approved a decree to canonize Hernandez, making him Venezuela's first saint. (AP Photo/Jacinto Oliveros)

FILE - A banner depicting Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez is displayed at the entrance of the Our Lady of Candelaria Church where his remains are interred, in Caracas, Venezuela, June 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

A woman embraces a statue of José Gregorio Hernandez, the physician known as the "doctor of the poor", in Valencia, Venezuela, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. Pope Francis on Tuesday approved a decree to canonize Hernandez, making him Venezuela's first saint. (AP Photo/Jacinto Oliveros)

A man looks up at a statue of José Gregorio Hernandez, the physician known as the "doctor of the poor", in Valencia, Venezuela, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. Pope Francis on Tuesday approved a decree to canonize Hernandez, making him Venezuela's first saint. (AP Photo/Jacinto Oliveros)

FILE - An altar dedicated to Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez is adorned with flowers and statues in his likeness, at the Vargas Public Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, Feb. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)

FILE - People gather outside La Candelaria Catholic church associated with Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez on the day of his beatification ceremony, in Caracas, Venezuela, April 30, 2021. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)

FILE - A woman prays at a memorial dedicated to Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, on the street where he died when hit by a car in 1919, in La Pastora neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, April 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

FILE - A man holds prayer cards with images of Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez on the day of his beatification ceremony outside the church that guards his remains in La Candelaria neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, April 30, 2021. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)

FILE - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro presents Pope Francis with a statuette of Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, a popular figure amongst Venezuelans whom Maduro expressed hope for his canonization, on the occasion of their private audience at the Vatican, June 17, 2013. (Andreas Solaro via AP, File)

A woman kneels at the shrine dedicated to Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, at a church in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, after Pope Francis approved the canonization of the physician known as the "doctor of the poor", making him Venezuela's first saint. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

FILE - The remains of Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez, popularly known as the "doctor of the poor", are displayed in an urn backdropped by his portrait, inside the La Candelaria Catholic church, in Caracas, Venezuela, April 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

FILE - A devotee holds up a framed image of of Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernández, outside La Candelaria church where he is buried, in Caracas, Venezuela, Oct. 26, 2020. The remains of Hernández, popularly known as the "doctor of the poor", were exhumed in a private ceremony inside the church as part of a Vatican request for his beatification process. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

Father Gregory Lobo wears a chasuble designed with an image of Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez during a celebratory Mass in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, after Pope Francis approved the canonization of the physician known as the "doctor of the poor", making him Venezuela's first saint. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

Figurines depicting physician Jose Gregorio Hernandez are displayed for sale at a church in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, after Pope Francis approved the canonization of the physician known as the "doctor of the poor", making him Venezuela's first saint. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)