Cambridge, MA. I was glad to read Jim Martin’s post on the likely beatification and canonization of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa. We may, as he suggests, rejoice at such a prospect, and I have indeed admired Mother Teresa for a very long time.

     But when Jim concludes by saying, “As I’ve said before, if John Paul and Mother Teresa aren’t canonized then no one should be!” — I would add, I cannot think of a better American saint for our times than Dorothy Day, founder of The Catholic Worker movement and newspaper along with Peter Maurin. Just to read her journals – The Duty of Delight (so wonderfully edited by Robert Ellsberg) convinced me – again – of her lifetime of true, deep, realistic holiness. That she and her best followers were/are not eager to see her canonized — too easy for the rest of us — doesn’t take away from the fact that she is a truly great saint. Indeed, this wise distance from the protocols of canonization strengthens the case for her exceptional holiness.

     So I happily emend Jim’s statement to read: “Let John Paul and Teresa and Dorothy be canonized together on the same day!” But then, I realize as I write this that one could add Archbishop Romero and a host of other women and men who lived and died as Catholic saints while witnessing to truth and justice… But saint-identifying isn’t exactly my expertise, so I’d better stop here.

Francis X. Clooney, S.J., is the Parkman Professor of Divinity at Harvard University, and a scholar of Hinduism and Hindu-Christian studies. He wrote for America’s In All Things column between 2007 and 2016. His latest book, The Future of Hindu-Christian Studies, has recently been published by Routledge.