The canonization of St Josemaría Escrivá on Oct. 6 was the last of the “big three” canonizations of 2002. The Spanish priest and founder of Opus Dei (Work of God), who died only 27 years ago, has been raised to the altar alongside Juan Diego and Padre Pio, whom Pope John Paul II declared saints earlier this summer.

USA Today tried to make a story out of speculations that the Pope is canonizing too many people, but its attempts to find “unworthy” saints seemed strained. Besides, Catholics know better: Our age's crisis is a crisis of saints, and the Holy Father is filling the breach.

The canonizations of 2002 are a perfect illustration of the John Paul principle of plenty of saints. The ceremonies themselves, our Rome correspondent Father Raymond J. de Souza tells us, show three distinct ways of being Catholic.

Opus Dei, faithful to their charism, organized St. Josemaría's big day with utmost professionalism. The flowers in St. Peter's Square were second only to the decorations used on Easter Sunday.

The choir saluted the canonization formula with a rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. Mass booklets were distributed with complete translations in all the major languages. Simultaneous translation was provided on local radio frequencies. The splendid gold vestments worn by the Holy Father and the concelebrants were all new—made by Opus Dei's own ecclesiastical tailors in Madrid with fabric produced in New Delhi, India.

The well-scrubbed, well-behaved, well-dressed professionals who comprise the majority of Opus Dei's 85,000 members worldwide attended Mass with deep reverence, seeming almost subdued, given the usual ambiance of a papal event. The lasting impression of the canonization festivities was a demonstration of St. Josemaría's conviction that worldly excellence is not opposed to the Gospel, but to the contrary, is demanded by a desire to do all things well for love of God.

There are other ways to holiness, too.

During Padre Pio's canonization last June, a blessed chaos reigned over the whole blisteringly hot day.

The crowds were doused by fire trucks during the Mass to keep cool—and there was not much danger of fine clothes being water-damaged. The Holy Father was unable to finish the solemn canonization formula without interruption—as soon as he mentioned Padre Pio's name the crowd erupted in sustained cheering, which was repeated during the Eucharistic Prayer at the invocation of St. Pio.

If Msgr. Escrivá's canonization was evidence that the Gospel could be lived sincerely by those who excel in the ordinary ways of the world, Padre Pio's was evidence that sanctity also has the most extraordinary manifestations. Last June, observers got the sense that entire villages had come to honor the bilocating, stigmata-bearing, soul-reading saint—everyone from the mayor to the butcher to the schoolboys whose deportment was more evocative of a soccer match than a pilgrimage. Padre Pio was such an extraordinary eruption of the supernatural that he caught the attention of those for whom the world is all too mundane.

And if villages came for Padre Pio, then Juan Diego brought an entire culture and nation, and showed how much Mexico has matured.

The exquisite canonization in July at Guadalupe—the heart of Mexican Catholicism—sought to celebrate the virtues of the indigenous cultures of Mexico and Central America, and to show how far Mexico has risen with this legacy. Yet Juan Diego's canonization, so ardently desired by all of Mexico, demonstrated that the event of Guadalupe transformed those very roots; henceforth what it meant to be Mexican included the Mother of God on Tepeyac Hill.

St. Juan Diego is not so much a model or an intercessor as he is the personification that Mexico was born as a Catholic nation in the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Pope John Paul II is the saint-making Pope—and it is likely that he will announce in the next few months the “mother” of all beatifications, that of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Why does he make so many saints? The canonizations of 2002 have given an answer: Because there are so many saints, in so many places, and so many walks of life.