America Magazine: Why We Need to Canonize More Lay Saints
Ever since the Second Vatican Council spoke of the “universal call to holiness,” there has been a move to recognize more lay men and women as saints, as models of sanctity for lay Catholics. Several contemporary saints have already been raised to the “glories of the altar,” among them St. Gianna Molla (1922-1962), an Italian mother (pictured here) who carried a child to term rather than consenting to an abortion, and who died in the process. Others on their way include Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925), the charismatic Italian social activist who once said, “Charity is not enough; we need social reform.” In that same vein is the redoubtable Dorothy Day, the American-born co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, whose cause for canonization has just been advanced. And in 2008, Louis and Zélie Martin, the devoutly Catholic parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (and her equally pious sisters) were beatified in 2008, the rare instance of a husband and wife recognized together.
