The Vatican’s leader of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Bishop Angelo Amato, shares his thoughts on the meaning and importance of saints in this letter.

An excerpt: “The Saints themselves are these ’seeds of newness,’ people who have fully realized the greatest projects, to live the perfection of love. The Saints are, therefore, precisely the ones who can enlighten the minds of the men and women of our age, who ran reignite in them the faith, who can sustain in them the prospective of the good, who can propose to them generous impulses which can overcome the paralysis of mediocrity, who can help them renew their interpersonal relationships in truth and justice, in such a way that no-one is left marginalised or overcome by despair and distress.”

Last Saturday, the op-ed page of The Los Angeles Times carried an column I wrote regarding the old pope, the new pope, my favorite saint and the saint-making process. This weekend, that same column was picked up by the Miami Herald, the Houston Chronicle and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Post-Gazette went the extra step of publishing a photo of Saint Gaetano Catanoso with the piece (thanks to op-ed page editor John Allison).

An excerpt: “A Catanoso saint? What kind of joke was this? Intrigued, I decided to look into this strange family phenomenon. I met with Vatican priests and interviewed relatives in the South of Italy for whom this distant cousin remains a powerful spiritual touchstone. In the process of learning about my relative, I learned plenty about why John Paul was so intent on making saints.”

A Houston reader wrote: “Pope John Paul II might have been a bit profligate in overseeing the canonization of so many saints, but I agree with Catanoso that his heart was in the right place. We Catholics here in America appreciate the Church elevating a few of our own, like the inspiring philanthropist Mother Katherine Drexel, to sainthood.”