Blessed Carmen Rendiles

Carmen Elena Rendiles Martínez, SJC (11 August 1903 – 9 May 1977) María Carmen in religion and also known as Maria del Monte Carmelo Rendiles, was a Venezuelan Catholic religious sister who founded the congregation of the Servants of Jesus of Caracas. Rendiles first served in leadership for the Servants of the Eucharist in France, where she completed her novitiate, before returning to Venezuela to found her congregation in 1965. She was its first superior general. On October 19, 2025, she was canonized. In January 2026 Pope Leo XIV sought her intercession following the US raid on Venezuela. Carmen Elena Rendiles Martínez was born on 11 August 1903 in Caracas as third of seven children to Ramiro Antonio Rendiles and Ana Antonia Martínez. Rendiles was born without a left arm and so was given a prosthetic arm which she had attached to her for her entire life. Her baptism was celebrated in the church of Santa Anna on 24 September 1903 and she received her Confirmation on 28 October 1905; she made her First Communion on 11 March 1911. In 1918, Carmen felt her concrete call to the religious life. Her father died in the mid-1920s. In December 1926, religious from France arrived and Carmen took their arrival as a sign that she was to follow her vocation as part of their congregation so applied and received permission for admission. Rendiles joined the Servants of the Eucharist on 25 February 1927 and was sent for her novitiate to Toulouse, where she received the religious habit on 8 September 1927. Rendiles made her first vows on 8 September 1929 and made her perpetual vows on 8 September 1932. In 1945, she was made the superior for all the congregation's houses in Venezuela. Rendiles founded the Servants of Jesus on 25 March 1965; the congregation received diocesan approval and support on 14 August 1969 from the Cardinal Archbishop of Caracas José Humberto Quintero Parra.