Filling heaven with saints

This last week has seen a rise in the interest in Catholic saints, or would-be saints, as Monsignor Nelson Baker's cause for sainthood advanced on January 14.  On that day, the Pope approved the report of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on the heroicity of virtue of this man, who died at age 95 in Buffalo, New York, in 1936.  A priest for sixty years, and former Civil War soldier, Baker gave the Buffalo area a number of social service institutions and built Our Lady of Victory minor basilica.  His charitable enterprises seemed to know no bounds.  Of his work, which carried with it tremendous noteriety, contemporaries often looked on in wonder.  In 1926, Baker asked Cardinal Patrick Hayes of New York to preach at the shrine's dedication.  Hayes later remarked that Baker's industry was formidable and a source of chiding to other less ambitious prelates.

While Baker is now getting his due recognition, there was a much less publicly visible ceremony taking place at the Congregation for Saints Causes; namely, the submission by Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York the documentation related to the investigatory phase of the Archdiocesan inquiry into the life of his predecessor Terrence Cardinal Cooke.

While the cases of these new entrants onto the rolls of Catholic sanctity have yet to be finalized, it may be important to note (because no one else has) that America does not yet possess the distinction of having an Irish-American saint.  That this is something worth considering is doubtless lost on the vast majority of Catholics in this country, but for every Irish priest or nun or every Irish lay person who has labored to exercise their peculiar brand of Catholicism, it has been a sign that these labors have been wanting in recognition.  Having one of their own raised to the dignity of the altar would certainly serve to raise the profile of Irish-American Catholics, who have for all practical purposes created a Church in America consistent with their own particular ethnic values and customs.  The deeper story, of course, is to be found in the place of sanctity within American culture and how it has taken on a cadence that serves both to highlight the ethnic context from which the Servant of God arises and his or her amelioration to a wider Catholic sensibility in which he or she imbibes.  It seems to me that the genius of such individuals is in their ability to search for and find God in the midst of these often polarizing tendencies.