By Lidia Wasowicz
Ever been touched by an “angel” whose sainthood you wish to promote but don’t know where to start?
A new option is the Center for Sainthood Studies — the only such resource and training facility outside the Vatican — which opened in June at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park.
Offering a user-friendly toolbox for navigating the complex, confounding path in advancing candidates for canonization, the laity-driven program aims to ease the way toward official acknowledgement of the saints among us.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone formalized the groundbreaking initiative in an April 14 decree, which described a key goal as “fostering a deeper understanding of the processes involved in recognizing the holiness of individuals and their potential for sainthood.”
The center will house relics and other archival materials, provide resources, serve as a consultation hub, present networking opportunities and offer a six-day course formulated and led by two esteemed postulators from Rome versed in canon law and proficient in case presentation.
“These experts know firsthand the challenges one might face when starting a cause and how daunting it may seem,” Archbishop Cordileone told Catholic San Francisco. “The certification process is designed to make sainthood causes less intimidating and encourage more people to initiate causes.”
Already, U.S. investigators are considering dozens of cases and the Dicastery (Vatican department) for the Causes of Saints is reviewing more than 1,500 cases of candidates from around the world to determine whether any of them should join the more than 10,000 saints recognized by the Catholic Church, he said.
“I believe we, the Catholic Church, need more saints recognized in America. I want their stories told. I want the examples they set and their faith in Christ to be followed,” said Michael McDevitt, who spent decades promoting the cause of Cora Evans, an American housewife and convert from Mormonism whose case has concluded its U.S. inspections, investigations and inquiries and is now in Roman hands. “We created the Center for Sainthood Studies to address this need.”
The “transformative” idea will reap great benefits, including the public’s access to photographs, mementos and writings about and by ordinary people practicing extraordinary virtues that inspire and influence others, McDevitt said.
Visitors, from theologians and scholars to tourists and schoolchildren, will have the opportunity to pray, meditate, venerate and view physical remnants and personal souvenirs of saints and those on the way to sainthood.
Clergy, religious and laity wanting a closer look can register at sainthoodcenter.com for the inaugural course, which will be held Feb. 15-21, 2026, at the scenic Vallombrosa Retreat Center, within walking distance of St. Patrick’s.
Graduates will earn a certificate of “achievement and readiness,” signed by the archbishop.
“The program, which will be offered annually at this stage, will provide an introduction to the theological and historical aspects of the causes of the saints, primarily focusing on the canonical procedures related to beatification, from its initiation in the diocese to canonization,” said Emanuele Spedicato, who holds a doctorate in canon law and is associate professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University, rooted in the Roman College, founded in 1551 by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Anyone involved or interested in a cause qualifies for entry, said Waldery Hilgeman, who holds doctorates in canon and civil law and has served as postulator for Dorothy Day and Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyên Van Thuân, among numerous others.
The easy-to-follow, step-by-step “Handbook of the Causes of Saints: The Diocesan Phase,” which he co-authored with Spedicato, will serve as a text for the class, once it is translated into English.
“I wish we had it for promoting Cora’s cause,” said Travis Degheri, the center’s executive director who holds a doctorate in leadership studies and partnered with McDevitt in pursuing Evans’ sainthood application.
Degheri, McDevitt and fellow Evans promoter Michael Huston, director of finance on the sainthood center’s board of directors, will share their struggles and hard-fought solutions as the California wife and mother was declared a servant of God — a title indicating initial approval of her candidacy — and advanced through the U.S. phase.
“We will talk about what we found unique and most difficult,” Huston said. Along with the postulators and guest speakers “we will give participants all the knowledge they need to get a cause before the Vatican.”
The curriculum will incorporate historical, theological and canonical contexts and procedural guidelines for petitioners, from the diocesan to the Roman phase, which concludes with verification of miracles and the pope’s final pronouncement.
Course content will also explore the significance of relics and mortal remains, a sample of which will be displayed in a new oratory to be erected in a building behind the seminary as it undergoes a multiyear seismic retrofit and renovation.
The studies will dovetail with a morning Mass option, breakfast, lunch and dinner, along with opportunities for private reflection, social interaction and networking with uniquely qualified teachers and guests on Vallombrosa’s lush, tree-dotted grounds.
The all-inclusive $2,500 fee also applies to six nights of single occupancy accommodations with an en suite restroom at the popular retreat and workshop center.
Organizers have set the maximum attendance at 50 to ensure a more personalized experience, said Cathy Bonnici, secretary on the sainthood center board charged with managing the operations because of her extensive background in banking, marketing and hospitality.
If the initial response is any indication, the slots should fill easily, leading to a more than once-a-year offering in the future, she said.
Within just the first week of going live, the registration site garnered four official signups and 10 serious requests for more information, Degheri said.
Since the prepaid participants come from Florida, Illinois, North Dakota and other parts of the country, they must deem the experience worth not only the fee but also their travel expenses, he added. “The projection looks like we’ll have little trouble reaching capacity.”
While some may simply want to explore the process of elevating a person from holiness to sainthood, others may have a specific individual in mind for the honor, said Bonnici, a retired Bank of America executive who majored in marketing and spent 26 years in her family’s hospitality business.
She pointed to some nuns who ran out of money before their cause could proceed.
“If we can help the diocesan process move along, from writing grants to raising worldwide awareness, we’d have fewer causes going dormant,” Bonnici said.
The sainthood center and its programs do not intend to replace the services of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in Rome, which oversees the course to canonization, Spedicato said.
“However, outside the Vatican, it is quite unique and will offer concrete support, especially in the initial phase of a process started at the local level,” he said. “That is why we anticipate significant interest in what the center can provide.”
What the center most hopes to provide is a universal call to holiness, Hilgeman said.
It is in the ideal spot to do so, said Father Mark Doherty, seminary president-rector.
“While remaining fundamentally focused on our core mission of forming men for the Catholic priesthood, St. Patrick’s also seeks to incubate and support initiatives that complement our core mission while … meeting a need within the broader ecclesial community,” he said.
St. Patrick’s not only forms the next generation of priests but also chronicles archdiocesan annals from the early California missions to the present, Archbishop Cordileone pointed out.
“The seminary location that manages this rich history complements the mission of the nation’s first Center for Sainthood Studies, which will educate, consult, preserve and promote saints and sainthood causes,” he said.
Fifth-year seminarian Kyle Franz Laluces considers placement of the center on campus a “tremendous blessing,” particularly at a time of the making of many modern-day saints.
“Carlo Acutis, who was born in the 1990s like me, was declared a saint earlier in Sept.,” he said. “What this affirms for all the faithful is simply this: holiness is within reach.”
The Center will also attest to the seriousness of such proclamations, he added.
“It will dispel any notion that canonization is arbitrary or that the Church only calls someone a ‘saint’ or a ‘blessed’ capriciously,” Laluces said. “Not a chance! It takes a whole lot of prayer, and a whole lot of work.”
Work on the center began in May 2024, stemming from growing concerns over the preservation of thousands of pages of precious original documents stored by their custodian McDevitt in his garage for 25 years.
Thanks to a partnership with St. Patrick’s and a grant from a nonprofit, these records of the life and times of Cora Evans and other archives will remain safeguarded for posterity in a 300-square-foot, climate-controlled, specially equipped repository adjacent to the seminary library.
The materials, related to ongoing cases and deemed “private” by the Vatican, will be off-limits to the public.
Canon law prescribes that the documents, while allowed to be digitized, “must remain ‘secret’ for 50 years after the cause has been concluded,” Spedicato said.
Visitors will have earlier access to attend Mass, worship privately, view relics and participate in other spiritually uplifting ways in the additional space that is to hold the oratory.
Organizers must first raise a projected $5.8 million price tag for the building’s government-mandated upgrades.
When completed, the 50-foot-by-30-foot area with 20-foot ceilings will spotlight slivers of the True Cross, mounted in a mid-sized crucifix that can be carried to parishes and other prayerful venues.
Within the chapel and outside its walls, glass cases will enclose first-class relics — segments of bone, hair or other physical remains — of › St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, St. Claude de la Colombiere, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini and St. Gerard Majella.
The current collection also includes second-class relics —personal items such as a cassock or notebook — from St. Anthony of Padua, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Teresa of Calcutta and from Evans and other saints-in-the-making. Items associated with Evans include her handkerchiefs stained from the stigmata — the wounds of Christ — she bore in her head, palms, feet and heart, rosaries, rose petals blessed by Our Lord, Mormon marriage certificate, gloves, letters, texts and an altar cloth she designed and made by hand.
Canon law mandates a physical separation between displays of the canonized, who can be publicly venerated, and those of the candidates, who have not yet reached that status, Degheri said.
“The new building will serve like a museum, intended to raise awareness of causes, increase knowledge of saints and inspire the desire to lead holy lives,” he said.
The hoped-for end result will offer convincing evidence that anyone — priest, religious, layperson, young or old, man or woman — can lead a life worthy of sainthood, Spedicato said.
“If we strive for sanctity here on earth, aided by God’s grace, we can be assured of being welcomed into the communion of saints in the life of the world to come, greeted by these very saints who have gone before us and modeled for us how to live a virtuous life,” said seminarian Laluces.
“Establishing the center certainly reinforces this sentiment, for it will serve as a significant resource in proving it so.”
Award-winning journalist Wasowicz, former West Coast science editor and senior science writer for United Press International, has been writing for Catholic San Francisco since 2011.
