Brian O’Neel thinks that the process of making saints has slighted the church in the U.S.:
My conviction is born out of a project on which I’m working. I am building a database of every saint and where each is buried. This catalogue is grouped by country, then by city and then by location.
So far, Italy has 82 pages. France, the next biggest country, has 34; and Germany, with the third greatest total, has 13. Korea — which has had the faith for less time than we have — has the fourth highest total of saints by country.
The United States has six and a half pages. Not bad, you think, right? Except that many of the entries on the U.S. document are shrines and places with reliquary chapels (e.g., St. Anthony’s in Pittsburgh). Or they are places that have had the benefit of getting a Roman martyr’s remains gifted to them or have a relic, such as of St. Anne or Blessed John Paul II.
There are a few such places on the aforementioned lists, granted. By and large, however, the above registers are comprised of homegrown saints.
Is it really possible we have no more saints in our nation than those already noted? Has not every diocese produced a saint? The questions are rhetorical. Of course each has. Of course we have more. It is possible — probable, even — that the Church Triumphant gains a new American every day. Unfortunately, we don’t know of them.
He goes on to explain why local saints are preferable to foreigners:
. . . it’s one thing to imitate or pray for the intercession of St. Anthony, who lived in Padua, Italy, in the 13th century. It’s another to do so with someone who lived in your back yard, who visited the places you know, who touched the things you can still touch.
And certainly, with the experience of nearly 500 years of Catholicism on these shores (the Gospel first came to what is now the United States in 1542), we have more than enough examples of holiness to increase the known number of American saints.
Even if the U.S. has lots of saints (or potential ones), do American parishes and dioceses have the cash?
Granted, many practical impediments exist to beginning such an undertaking. Candidly, the biggest of these is the cost.
Causes of saints are hugely expensive. There are witnesses to depose, evidence to collect, out-of-pocket expenses to reimburse, occasional stipends, if not salaries, to disburse, not to mention printing of prayer cards and brochures and other expenditures. All of this can cost between $250,000 to $1 million, spread out over many years.
Indeed, part of the expense comes from the fact that it often takes decades, even centuries, to pursue someone’s canonization. (For this reason, please don’t throw away those fundraising solicitations you get in the mail from, say, the Bishop Frederick Baraga cause.)
Not to worry, though. The Early Church Fathers were all over prayer cards and fundraising.
Old Life 