Sainthood

On Oct. 12, Pope Benedict XVI canonized four new saints to the Catholic liturgy: 19th-Century Italian priest Gaetano Errico; Mary Bernard (Verena) B_tler, a Swiss nun and missionary in Latin America who died in 1924; Alfonsa of the Immaculate Conception, a nun who who died in 1946 and is the first named female saint from India; and Narcisa de Jes_s Martillo Mor_n, a pious laywoman from Ecuador who died in 1869. In the Catholic faith, only God can make a saint; these four are among those who "have emerged as individuals who can light the way ahead," as the Modern Catholic Encyclopedia puts it. But the means by which these saints are identified — and by whom — has varied over the history of the church. The first Catholics revered as saints were martyrs who died under Roman persecution in the first centuries after Jesus Christ... [read full story]