The Narthex

Pope Francis advanced more souls along the “pipeline” to canonization in 2017 and 2018. Let's continue our systematic, chronological look at them: Feb. 27, 2017: 8 people, including one martyr. Of the non-martyrs: four were priests (one of them a diocesan-founder) or religious, three of whom were founders. The two…

Before we turn to recent years, I'll add one more lay Blessed to the last blog’s “Lay Saints 'In the Pipeline'": Frédéric Ozanam (1813-1853) was a lawyer who founded the lay St. Vincent de Paul Society. He had 13 siblings but only two of them survived to adulthood. He was…

When I was a high school sophomore in 1956, my ambitious father accompanied me to an interview at the plush home of a Phillips Andover Academy board trustee. At the time, the school adhered to a code of "WASP Ascendancy," breeding a ruling class where only sons of the upper…

Let us take a look at the laypersons who are in the pipeline to be canonized. I have not researched all of the hundreds of Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God. In 2006, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, who headed the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said there were more…

The funds and perseverance required to promote the causes of holy ones are commonly supplied by religious Orders, who promote their own members, especially their founders and foundresses. But what about married people? Two theologians at the University of Notre Dame gave their opinion on the occasion of the 2001…

I have suffered heart arrhythmia most of my adult life. It has afflicted my parents, siblings, and their offspring. Two have had their heart valves replaced. I have many maternal cousins with hip and knee replacements. The husband of my maternal aunt contracted a brain cancer that killed him and…

As stated in Part VI of this blog series, during the 40 years from 1978 to October 2018, there have been 1,419 individuals canonized. Of these, 170 were non-martyrs. For anyone who thinks there are large numbers of people being canonized, and indeed the numbers are exponentially greater than before…

A not-so-funny thing is happening as I age in (minimal) wisdom and (gratuitous) grace. I noticed it reading the Catholic Worker, as I’ve done since high school. The obituaries started to be the best part of the paper. How so? Because they tell a good part of the truth about…

The Statistical Yearbook of the Church states that there are 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide. These numbers are baptized, not practicing, Catholics. France, for example, reports 44 million Catholics among its 59 million residents, but the French church claims about four million practicing Catholics. In Poland, weekly attendance, according to local…

In order to have more lay models for the witnessing of the Faith, and to inspire lay vocations and holiness among the laity, I argue that the Church needs to increase the ratio of canonized laity to canonized priests/religious. This is not about “diversity” or “justice.” I’m not concerned with…

You may ask why we bother canonizing anyone. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “By canonizing some of the faithful, i.e., by solemnly proclaiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God’s grace, the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and…

What if I happened to meet an old crone in the local park who could read my mind, flash heal my heart disease, and predict future events? Would I then accuse her of witchcraft? Strict Puritans would have done so in the year 1692, for that’s what spawned the Salem…

Engagement in the "culture wars," or striving to maintain the good name of Western and Christian civilization, runs the risk of pushing us over a line, forgetting our primary purpose and losing the plot. Someone once defined a fanatic as a person who, having once forgotten his original purpose, redoubles…

I would say the grace to cry out “Abba” to the Father, and the grace to recognize Jesus as Lord, is the same type of grace that fills bishops when they recognize that the men they will ordain are sufficiently holy and will grow in holiness, and the same type…

Grace from God is needed for us to recognize holiness in another. I am not speaking about recognizing the holiness of a deceased person whom the Universal Church declares a saint, but the holiness of a deceased person before the Church recognizes it. I respectfully suggest that it is akin…