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…