Of Many Things

Who is Americas patron saint? Popular saints have always been a source of devotion and inspiration, and can also be unifying personalities in diverse cultures. Would Mexico ever have become a unified Christian nation without Our Lady of Guadalupe? Could Poland have risen from the rubble and atrocities of World War II without Our Lady of Czestochowa? Or, closer to home, what wretched calumnies would the bellicose ranks of Jesuits heap upon one another without their universal devotion to St. Ignatius Loyola? Popular saints show us what we share, not where we disagree, and often serve as incarnational expressions of our most precious ideals.

The United States already has its own saints, men and women of great holiness and distinction such as Elizabeth Ann Seton, John Neumann, Frances Cabrini and Katherine Drexel. They represent the causes of education, missionary work, outreach to Native American Indians and ethnic minorities and a thousand other worthy apostolates. But do any of them embody the spirit of the whole church in America? The recent official opening of the cause for sainthood of Isaac Thomas Hecker, the founder of the This article appears in February 18 2008.