UNITED STATES
Questions from a Ewe
Next week’s double pope canonization extravaganza is creating a lot of sainthood “buzz” in the air right now. Therefore, I thought I’d offer some tips for sainthood.
First, Catholic dogma says the Communion of Saints includes official canonized and beatified saints, anybody in heaven, and all believers on earth. So, if you believe in Jesus, congratulations, you’re already a saint! You can stop reading now and go do something more productive.
However, this common, garden-variety sainthood does not land people on religious trading cards and rarely results in statues being erected in your honor, or churches, schools, and ritzy vacation spots being named after you. If you’re going for that high-profile, high-revenue type of sainthood, then keep reading.
I’ve been plowing through saint records and building a database to catalog demographic information for well over 10% of the canonized and beatified folks. If my calculations are correct, the sampling I’ve done so far yields statistics with a 3.5% margin of error for projections across the full canonized / beatified population. Good news, some of these statistics are so skewed, the 3.5% margin of error is kitten’s play.
My advice if you want to be an officially recognized saint:
1. Be male. Based on my sample set, 84% of canonized and beatified people were male. You might scratch your head in confusion since 80% of the church’s work is done by women, and women are over 50% of the world’s population. This might seem backwards to you. No, no…I beg of you; don’t let facts, equity and reality confuse you. If you insist on logic and equity, you probably should stop reading now before you injure your brain or sense of righteousness. That statistic simply reflects church hierarchical members’ value system and helps us quantify it. They see men as being over five times more virtuous and holy than women…end of story.
2. Be a priest, monk, or religious brother. About 60% of all official saints were ordained or religious males. If we look at only the male saints…that tiny 84% majority of all saints…the number jumps to around 70% who were ordained or religious. So if you’re going to be male, be a priest too, to up your odds.
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