From October 19, 2020, to April 14, 2021, this blog featured my essay — split into a 35-part series — on the recognition of holiness in laypeople (Part I is linked below). At the end of Part V, I made three recommendations that would aid “all of us — bishops, priests, nuns, and laity — in recognizing holiness among laypeople.” The recommendations were that:

• the Congregation for the Causes of Saints would require that religious Orders not advance causes for its own members without advancing X times as many causes to canonize laypeople, especially laypeople whom the Order has influenced;
• each diocesan bishop would appoint at least one advocate for the canonization of laypeople. They can be unpaid, part-time. They could be priests, religious, or lay. Their role would be to identify and collect information concerning the living (totally behind the scenes like the many obituaries drafted in advance of death. See Margalit Fox, “She Knows How to Make an Exit. You’re Reading It,” N.Y. Times, June 29, 2018 (retiring after writing obituaries for 14 years) and deceased. What numbers might we be talking about? Well, one Servant of God in a diocese each year would be 100 in a century; and
• each diocesan bishop would maintain a webpage that lists Servants of God of the diocese and biographical materials, testimonials, a description of miracles, prayers, and a place for comments. The Vatican would maintain links to each diocesan webpage. Wikipedia has a partial global list of Servants of God, why shouldn’t the Vatican have a full, public, list?

In early 2022, I sent a complete copy of the essay to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

I am happy to report that Pope Francis has adopted, in part, my third recommendation. In a one-page letter to all particular Churches, dated November 9, he expands my suggestion, so that all Saints, Blesseds, and Venerables, as well as Servants of God of a diocese be included. He also does not limit this list to laypeople. He further specifies a particular date when these would be remembered annually by name during Mass as well as in “appropriate initiatives outside the liturgy” (such as a webpage accessible year-round?). He writes:

it seems important to me that all particular Churches [that is, dioceses] commemorate the Saints and Blesseds on a single date, as well as the Venerables and Servants of God of their respective territories. It is not a matter of inserting a new memorial into the liturgical calendar, but of promoting with appropriate initiatives outside the liturgy, or of recalling within it, for example in the homily or at another time deemed appropriate, those figures who have characterized the local Christian path and spirituality. Therefore, I urge the particular Churches, starting from the coming Jubilee of 2025, to remember and honor these figures of holiness, every year on 9 November, the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica.

Let me take this occasion to repeat what I wrote in the introduction to my original essay:

Grace abounds, holiness abounds, in the Body of Christ. Yet, it seems that we — laity, bishops, priests, religious sisters and brothers — either do not know what holiness in laity looks like or do not know how to describe it to each other. This is reflected in having only two lay people, who were holy in a way to which we laity could aspire, canonized in the last 40 years. It is further reflected in the decisions made by Pope Francis on 38 occasions between January 2017 and February 2021 with respect to the recognition of martyrdom, miracles and heroic virtues. Of the 258 non-martyrs, only 40 were lay people. Only five of the 40 lay people were married, four of them having children.

Let’s all of us, laity, bishops, priests and religious, pray for the grace to recognize holiness among laypeople. Let’s start talking to one another about what we see.

[A link to my 35-part series on lay holiness is here.]