Spirit of 79: The Number of Americans Proposed for Sainthood

The number of Americans proposed for sainthood has risen to 79.

(photo: Jiri Hera/Shutterstock.com)

With the recent opening of the beatification cause of Rhoda Wise, the convert, mystic and stigmatist who befriended Mother Angelica when the latter was still young Rita Rizzo, the number of Americans proposed for sainthood has risen to 79.

This includes seven beati (i.e., “Blesseds”) and 20 declared “Venerable.” The number of beati would be eight, except for the ongoing legal battle between the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, and the Archdiocese of New York over the disposition of Venerable Fulton J. Sheen’s remains.

And the list does not include two figures popularly called “Servant of God” — Bishop Mathias Loras (1792-1858), first ordinary of the Diocese of Dubuque, Iowa, and Sister Mary Annella Zervas (1900-1926), a Benedictine religious from Minnesota — as neither has had their cause formally introduced.

Nor does it include Venerable Sébastien Râle (1657-1724), the French priest martyred in Maine, because, despite his title and like the previous two individuals, his cause has never had any formal recognition.

The proposed saints include laymen, priests and religious and one very large group of 86 martyrs of “La Florida,” men and women — mostly American Indians, but also some friars and priests — who lost their lives for Christ in the Sunshine State between 1549 and 1706.

By and large, the American causes are a great example of why making saints is so difficult.

First, there is the cost. A cause usually needs to hire a representative for the saint-making effort in Rome, typically someone who has made this his profession. Then there is the need to delegate someone to handle the affair stateside. Even if this person is a volunteer, there are costs associated with gathering the information, interviewing relevant individuals, collating the information, getting it bound into volumes, and so on.

To review the miracle for the cause takes a board of six to seven members. According to CruxNow.com, “the going rate in sainthood causes is roughly $560 for each of the two medical personnel asked to perform a preliminary review and about $4,200 in total for the seven members of the medical consulting committee.” All told, the entire effort can cost between $50,000 and $250,000, with the latter figure being held as the benchmark for the average cause, although some can occasionally reach $500,000.

Without significant public interest and the attendant donations or a wealthy backer, therefore, one can see how cost might be a hurdle to getting someone declared  “Blessed,” much less “St.”

Take, for example, Servant of God Mother Maria Maddalena Bentivoglio, a Poor Clare superior in Evansville, Indiana. She was beloved by Blessed Pope Pius IX.

As a girl, she entered the Poor Clares in 1864, just shy of her 30th birthday. Sent by Pius to establish the Poor Clares in the United States when she was 40, Mother Maria created several foundations, the last in Evansville. It was tough going.

The convent had no furniture, and they subsisted on bread and water. Mother died in 1905. Exhumed in 1907 and 25 years later, her remains were found to be incorrupt.

Her beatification cause’s vice postulator was transferred several years ago, and a replacement for him has not been found, in part due to lack of funding. As such, the effort is on hold.

Some causes suffer not so much from a lack of funds, but a poverty of interest. This is the case with Servant of God Father Felix de Andreis (1778-1820), who helped establish the Church in St. Louis. According to the Vincentians, the cause for Father Felix “has not seen any appreciable movement since around 1920. The single volume of the cause … is from 1918.” Indeed, one Vincentian priest said the cause is, “frankly speaking, moribund, if not dead.”

The same can be said for any number of other American cases, such as the martyr Father Leo Heinrichs, Father Magín Catalá (whose cause preceded his hero, St. Junípero Serra) and the Martyrs of Virginia.

Other causes, however, are marching along, including that of Venerable Henriette Delille, the mixed-race freed woman of the pre-Civil War era who founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in New Orleans. According to her cause, an alleged miracle is before the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. There is also another potential miracle out of Little Rock, Arkansas, and the cause is investigating it. If either miracle is found legitimate, she will become  “Blessed.” The beatification process for Venerable Nelson Baker, founder of a “city of charity” near Buffalo, New York, is in the same situation, waiting on the doctors in Rome to rule on its submitted miracle.

Those causes that have already reached the beatification stage are anticipating the miracle that will qualify for canonization (one miracle is needed to become “Blessed” and another to be a universally recognized saint). As with so much in life, the waiting is fraught with stops and starts. For example, the cause of the 19th-century missionary Redemptorist priest Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos thought it had a miracle, a woman who seemed to have been cured from cancer. However, the cancer returned within 10 years, and she died.

Most sainthood efforts are simply marking time and doing the best they can to make progress.

Take the Franciscan martyrs of Georgia. The diocesan phase of the investigation is completed, and the Franciscans in Rome have almost finished the positio, a written history about the five friars who lost their lives for Christ in 1597.

Similarly, other causes are focused on collecting information, sending out prayer cards, soliciting testimony of favors received through prayers to the Servant of God in question — and praying.

In the meantime, whether they ever become canonized saints, the stories of priests such as Father de Andreis, Samuel Mazzuchelli, Félix Varela, Stephen Eckert and Demetrius Gallitzin; sisters such as Cornelia Connelly, Hendrika Ijsseldijk, Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, Maria Theresa Dudzik and Mary Teresa Tallon; and laymen and women such as Dorothy Day, Gwen Coniker, Paul Murphy, Pierre Toussaint and Carlos Santiago will give those who seek out their witness plenty of fodder for growing in holiness and becoming saints themselves.

Brian O’Neel writes from

Coatesville, Pennsylvania.

 

 

 

Here is about as complete a list of current U.S. beatification and canonization causes as writer Brian O’Neel can compile. It may be missing a few names, but only a few:

The 86 Martyrs of La Florida (1549-1706)
Juan Bautista de Segura and seven companions, aka, the Martyrs of Virginia (1571)
Martyrs of Georgia (1597)
Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores (1672, martyred on Guam, which was then part of the Spanish Empire)
Venerable Father Sébastien Rale (1724)
Venerable Father Antonio Margil (1726; died in Mexico City; most of his ministry done in Texas)
Servant of God Father Felix de Andreis (1820)[1]
Servant of God Father Magín Catalá, OFM (1830)
Servant of God Bishop Simon-Guillaume-Gabriel Bruté de Rémur (1839)
Servant of God Demetrius Gallitzin (1840)
Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1853)
Venerable Félix Varela (1857)
Venerable Mother Henriette Delille (1862)
Venerable Father Samuel Mazzuchelli (1864)
Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos (1867)
Venerable Bishop Frederic Irenaeus Baraga (1868)
Servant of God Rafael Cordero (1868)
Blessed Franziska Schervier (1876; nurse during Civil War; died in Germany; dad nicknamed her “Frank” because he wanted a boy, and the name stuck)
Servant of God Father Patrick Ryan (1878)
Venerable Cornelia Peacock Connelly (1879)
Servant of God Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange (1882)
Servant of God Father Isaac Hecker (1888)
Venerable Father Michael James McGivney (1890)
Servant of God Mother Maria Adelaida O’Sullivan (1893)
Servant of God Father Augustus Tolton (1897)
Venerable Isabel Larrañaga Ramírez (1899; died in Havana during U.S. protectorate)
Servant of God Sister Mary Magdalen Bentivoglio (1905)
Servant of God Father Leo Heinrichs, (1908 in odium fidei)
Servant of God Julia Greeley, laywoman (1918)
Venerable Mother Maria Theresa Dudzik (1918)
Servant of God Father Thomas Price (1919)
Servant of God Francis Joseph Parater (1920)
Servant of God Father Stephen Eckert of Dublin (1923)
Servant of God Archbishop Jan Cieplak (1926; died in New Jersey; from Vilnius)
Servant of God Sister Theresia of the Blessed Trinity (Hendrika) Ijsseldijk (1926)
Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich (1927)
Servant of God Bishop James Walsh (1936)
Venerable Msgr. Nelson Baker (1936)
Blessed Father José Maria de Manila (1936; born in Manila, but before it was an American colony; martyred)
Five Carmelites, several of whom were naturalized citizens, who served in the U.S. for years but were martyred in Spain during its Civil War
Servant of God Therese of Jesus Lindenburg (1939)
Servant of God Father Lewis Thomas (Paul James) Wattson (1940)
Servant of God Bernard Quinn (1940)
Venerable Sister Kasimira (Maria) Kaupas (1940)
Venerable Sister Joaquina Maria Mercedes Barcelo Pages (1940, Philippines)
Servant of God Rhoda Wise, laywoman (1948)
Servant of God Father Edward Flanagan (1948)
Servant of God Father Emil Joseph Kapaun (1951)
Servant of God Bishop Francis Ford (1952)
Servant of God Mother Mary Teresa Tallon (1954)
Servant of God Mary Virginia Merrick (1955)
Venerable Father Solanus Casey (1957)
Servant of God Cora Evans (1957)
Blessed Carlos Rodriguez Santiago (1963)
Servant of God Father Vincent Robert Capodanno (1967)
Venerable Msgr. Jean Martin Zozine Eyraud (1968)
Venerable William Gagnon (1972)
Servant of God Fr. Theodore Foley (1974)
Servant of God Paul Murphy (1976)
Venerable Fulton Sheen (1979)
Servant of God Dorothy Day (1980)
Venerable Sister Celestina Bottego (1980)
Servant of God Stanley Francis Rother, martyred priest (1981)
Servant of God Father Aloysius Ellacuria (1981)
Servant of God Brother James Alfred [Santiago] Miller (1982)
Vincent J. McCauley (1982)
Servant of God Terence John Cardinal Cooke (1983)
Servant of God Father Joseph Muzquiz (1983)
Servant of God Father Walter Ciszek (1984)
Venerable Mother Angeline McCrory (1984)
Servant of God Sr. Thea Bowman (1990)
Servant of God Bishop Alphonse Gallegos, OSA (1991)
Servant of God Father Patrick Peyton (1992)
Venerable Father Aloysius Schwartz (1992)
Servant of God Father John Hardon, SJ (2000)
Servant of God Sister Ida Peterfy (2000)
Servant of God Gwen Cecilia Coniker (2002)
Servant of God Father Bill Atkinson (2004)
Servant of God Father Joe Walijewski (2006)

 

Bishop Mathias Loras (1858) and Sister Mary Annella Zervas (1926) don't get mentioned because their causes have not officially been introduced.

Incidentally, given her involvement with the secular Franciscans, Julia Greeley would likely have known Servant of God Father Leo Heinrichs, who was murdered while distributing Communion at Denver’s St. Elizabeth Church ca. 1903.

The cause of canonization for Father Joseph Lafleur is one of those that will be considered at the USCCB assembly this week

US Bishops Advance 2 Causes of Canonization

The bishops voted that the causes for Father Joseph Verbis Lafleur, a World War II military chaplain, and Marinus (Leonard) LaRue, a merchant mariner who became a Benedictine monk, should proceed.