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Anticipating the feast of Sts. Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf, and Companions on October 19, I became curious about American saints.
These eight Jesuit missionaries are called “the North American martyrs,” but none of them was originally from North America. They all traveled from France to spread the Gospel in a new land.
That revelation made me curious: Were any saints originally from the United States? Or were they all transplants from somewhere else?
Only one saint born in the U.S.
It turns out that almost all of the American saints were not homegrown. Even some saints whom we think of as American technically were not: For example, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was born in New York but began her life as a British citizen, as the American colonies were under English rule at the time of her birth. For another example, St. Kateri Tekakwitha lived in upstate New York, but long before the U.S. existed.
It turns out almost every person on the official list of 11 canonized American citizens was an adult immigrant to the U.S. Of course, not included on that list are the eight North American martyrs since they did most of their work in New France, which is now Canada, though some of them were martyred on territory that is now part of the state of New York -- history and geography can often be complicated!
After some digging, I was stunned to realize that technically only one person born in the modern-day U.S. is canonized, and that is St. Katharine Drexel.
Why so few?
There are plenty of reasons why so few American-born Catholics are canonized. One obvious point is that the U.S. is much younger than most countries: It’s been around for less than 250 years, a mere blink of an eye compared to nations in other parts of the world.
Not only is it a youthful country, but also most of its citizens were not Catholic (nor are they today). The first settlers brought other faiths with them, and while Catholics were around from the beginning, our faith always has been a minority here.
By contrast, many countries around the world have been majority-Catholic for some 1,500 years, so it’s no surprise that they have produced more saints.
A hopeful future
Just one U.S.-born saint and only 11 American saints total might not sound like much, but the list gets a lot longer if you look at the increasingly large number of people declared blessed, venerable, or a servant of God.
You can see a full list here of these names, and there are dozens, people from all walks of life and from all backgrounds and parts of the United States.
No doubt you know the names of many of these inspiring people: Bl. Stanley Rother, Bl. Michael J. McGivney, Servant of God Dorothy Day.
Give the U.S. another hundred years, and there is good reason to hope our list of saints will be quite a lot longer.
In the meantime, we can be grateful that we have so many saints in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico that we can turn to for inspiration and intercession. Let's ask them to help us grow in holiness. And who knows? Maybe one of the names on that future list of saints will be yours.
