Married saints

John Donohue in the periodical American says that if the saints in glory were capable of irritation, many of them would be irritated by a letter-to-the-editor of the magazine New Yorker which states categorically as a "fact" that the Catholic Church has never canonized a married man. The letter’s exact words:

"There is no better proof of how the Catholic Church’s view of sexually is distorted than the fact that it has never canonized a married man."

Whether or not the Church’s view of sexuality is distorted is beside the point; but it certainly is not proven by the "fact" that it has never canonized a married man. That is not a "fact" but a false assertion.

Donohue mentions several examples of married men: St. Basil the Elder of Cappadocia; St. Henry II of Germany; St. Louis IX of France; St. Thomas More of England; not to mention St. Joachim, father of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph her husband.

We might also mention married women, beginning with St. Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary; St. Helena, mother of Constantine and St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine. There were also several sainted queens.

Only recently the present Pope beatified an Italian lady physician whose husband and five children were present at her beatification. When the husband was asked by reporters how it felt to have a saint for a wife, he said, "I knew my wife was holy and all that, but I didn’t know she was a saint."

Which goes to show that there may be saints among us whom we don’t know to be saints – including married men and women.

The case of Thomas More is interesting because he was married not once but twice. When his first wife died he married again in order to have someone to take care of his daughters.

His life of course is well-known. He studied the classics at Oxford and then left to become a lawyer and later a judge. Meantime his fame as a humanist scholar had spread throughout Europe. When the all-powerful Cardinal Wolsey incurred the king’s displeasure, Thomas More was appointed to take Wolsey’s place as Lord Chancellor of England.

More retained that high position until he also incurred the king’s anger by refusing to sanction the king’s divorce and remarriage. He compounded his "guilt" by refusing to take the oath that the king was the Supreme Head of the Church in England. He was imprisoned and beheaded. Just before the axe fell, he pronounced those immortal words, " I die, the king’s good servant, but God’s first."

He has been declared Patron of Statemen –which includes all who serve in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, as well as politicians who aspire for those positions.