The Catholic Church’s Saints, and Mine

As we approach St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d do a little digging into the making of saints.

Legend has it that St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was the first to explain the holy trinity with a shamrock, and that he drove the snakes from Ireland.

 

In fact, he was not born in Ireland. He was probably born in Wales or Britain. He was kidnapped by pirates as a boy and sold into slavery in Ireland. He escaped after about six years, and fled to France, where he joined a monastery and studied religion for years before returning to Ireland, where he converted many Pagans to Christianity. A link to an interesting website about St. Patrick is here.

The making of saints

According to Wikipedia, today there are 810 canonized Roman Catholic saints, from Abadiu of Antinoe to Zygmunt Gorazdowski.

The road to sainthood begins with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, an administrative body of the Church that oversees the process that leads first to beatification, then to canonization of saints. The congregation determines whether candidates displayed "heroic virtues" and are worthy of beatification or canonization, then presents its cases to the Pope, who makes final decisions.

Beatification vs. Canonization

Beatification means a dead person has entered into heaven and can intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name. Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process.

To achieve canonization, the candidate must be shown to have worked miracles. There are three types: resurrection from the dead; recovery from a disease that is deemed incurable; and instantaneous recovery from an illness that treatment could only have achieved after a long period.

St. Patrick is attributed with performing thousands of miracles, including 39 resurrections.

My list

Well and good. But what about those who should be, but to date have not been, canonized? My list, in no particular order, forthwith; use the links to learn more.

My sainthood candidates	Miracles performed
Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton and Louis Fenn Wadsworth	Invented baseball*
Raffaele Esposito	Invented pizza
Ninkasi	Invented beer
Vince Gilligan	Created Breaking Bad
Major Walter C. Wingfield	Invented tennis
George Washington Carver	Invented peanut butter**
That Iranian guy from 6,000 B.C.	Invented wine
Roswell Eldridge	First to breed Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (sort of)
Louis Réard	Invented the bikini

*No, it wasn’t Abner Doubleday, as we were all led to believe. Nor, apparently, was it Alexander Cartwright Jr., who was later thought to be the inventor, according to Major League Baseball’s official historian.

**But perfected by Joseph L. Rosenfield, who developed crunchy peanut butter.

Copyright © 2015 by Dave Douglass