Sovereignty of SeaWitch

Several years ago, while vacationing on the Greek island of Cephalonia, I was reading a brief history of the island and I was amazed to find out that this little island with a population of less than 30,000 people was home to 5 of its very own saints. By contrast, Canada, with a population of about 31,000,000, to my knowledge, doesn't have any.

This realization resulted in many questions for me. Could it be because Canada is a relatively young country? Could it be because Canadians aren't that saintly? Could it be because you need to be baptised Catholic or Eastern Orthodox in order to be considered for sainthood? If that's so, does this mean that only devotees of these religions are worthy to become saints?

My personal opinion on the matter was that Churches use sainthood as a means to increase membership and keep their faithful followers faithful to them. By canonizing a person, they can accomplish this. Because the Catholic Holy See and the Orthodox Synod can't be everywhere at once to make sure people show up at church every Sunday and to keep the collection plates full, they need to reward them not only for attendance and monetary generosity, they need to give them a good reason to lead a 'worthy' life. When they make a saint out of an ordinary person, it sets an example to others in the community that extreme devotion to the Church is not only recognized but rewarded in such a way that no secular occupation could ever compete with...you can have your own icon and have millions of people pray to YOU for centuries to come. What other secular job can offer you that kind of reward? Not even Elvis comes close to that kind of worship and devotion.

With the latest scandals of the Catholic church, attendance has dropped sharply especially in North America. Faith in the Catholic Church itself has been damaged seemingly irrevocably. The time when only Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism ruled the planet seems to be over. In the past 500 years, so many new religions have sprouted up, you'd think the Church would be having a harder time to find new people to canonize amongst its declining membership. But apparently this isn't so. Pope John Paul II has been a very busy man. "From the establishment of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 1588 until the election of John Paul II, there were 296 saints canonized and 808 declared blessed. The present Pope has canonized 459 saints and proclaimed 1,274 blessed during his pontificate. " (http://www.opusdei.org/art.php?w=32&p=3943)

In 390 years, almost 300 saints and 800 blessed. But John Paul II has been able to find 460 more saints and a whopping 1,274 to bless in just 27 years? The Church says that's because the lengthy procedural process for canonization has been shortened. Or could it just be because the Church is desperately trying to fill its pews again to counter the mass exodus of the past 30 years?

Even after many hours researching religions, saints, the canonization process and the history of saints themselves, I still don't have any conclusive answers to my original questions but I still haven't found anything convincing enough to prove that I'm wrong in thinking that Sainthood is a religious marketing ploy either.

Maybe we just give too much attention to the whole idea of sainthood anyway. The American writer, Ambrose Pierce once wrote that a saint is nothing more than a sinner revised and edited.