Today being All Saints Day, we do well to consider the heroic, wise, holy ones who have inspired, guided, instructed, protected and sanctified us over a lifetime, say the last 8 decades since WWII. I will offer 80 names on three lists: the older generation, our parents, often called The Great Generation, (born 1901-27), who lived through the Depression and WWII into the second half of the century; the Silent Generation (1928-45) who have recently passed or are now in their 90s and 100s; and the Boomers (1946-64).
This list is personal, leaning toward theologians/philosophers, saint/mystics, Americans and leaders of lay renewal movements. The criteria is six-fold:
1. Holiness of life.
2. Range and depth of influence.
3. Clarity, creativity and profundity of thought.
4. Fidelity to the Tradition of the Church.
5. That indefinable charm, charism, and splendor that delights, attracts and inspires others.
6. Intimacy with the poor and suffering.
So brilliant, influential theologians whose fidelity to Church teaching was compromised, notably in regard to contraception, (Rahner, Lonergan, Rohr, Chardin, Metz, Illich), do not make this list. In some cases, these men are admirable in their piety, erudition and loyalty to the Church, but their followers developed aspects of their thought in unfortunate directions. Of course we exclude the gifted, influential "dishonorables" of The Scandal: Maciel, Vanier, McCarrick, Rupnik and others.
GREAT GENERATION
St. John Paul II The incomparable champion of our time, our own El Cid, he embodied to a sublime degree all six values: holiness, influence, intellectual brilliance, fidelity, charism and closeness to the poor.
St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta By virtue of her heroic service of the poor and her decades long "dark night of the soul" she stands alone in her fortitude and holiness.
St. Padre Pio He also stands alone for his holiness and the extraordinary manifestations of the supernatural.
Pope Benedict A true Doctor of the Faith, his teaching, which springs from the humility and holiness of his life, is incomparable in its combination of clarity, simplicity, depth, fidelity, erudition and loveliness.
Hans Urs von Balthasar and Adrienne von Speyr The partnership of this exceptional mystic and the most creative, encyclopedic, deep Catholic thinker of our time leaves us a boundless legacy of the True, the Good and the Beautiful.
Fulton Sheen, Patrick Peyton, (the early) Thomas Merton, Sheed and Ward. In their distinct ways, these inflamed the remarkable Catholic American Renewal of 1945-65.
Dorothy Day, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, and Madaleine Delbrell. These fierce, fearless, brilliant, holy women lived intimately with the poor, ever in deep prayer.
St. Jose Maria Escriva, Chiara Lubich, Monsignor Luigi Giussanij. Founders of Opus Dei, Focolari, and Communion and Liberation. A special note of gratitude to Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, brilliant, eccentric, hilarious, mystical, boundless entertaining leader of CL in the USA.
Bishops and Periti of Vatican II, (especially DeLubac, Congar, Danielou, Boyer, Phillips, Murray, Ostereicher).
Jacques Maritain, Dietrick von Hildebrand, Jaki, Gilson, Joseph Pieper, Guardini, Marcel, MacIntyre, Dulles, Dawson, Lukacs. Along with others, these retrieved St. Thomas in conversation with what is best in contemporary thought. Surely most underrated, since the Council, is Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, who mentored John Paul, Chenu, Congar and countless others in his 50 years teaching at the Angelicum as he battled his friend Maritain and the entire Nouvelle Theologue, an amicable fight that continues today.
Caryl Houselander, Flannery O'Connor, Graham Green, Sigrid Undset, Paul Claudel, Tolkien, Bernanos, Mauriac, Walter Percy and others who inflamed the Catholic imagination.
Popes Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI who shepherded our Church after the war and into the 70s with striking intelligence, prudence, and piety.
Mother Angelica. This simple, humble, pious nun has had immense impact on the global Church through her miraculous EWTN.
Silent Generation
Kiko Arguello, with Carmen Hernandez, founded the NeoCatechumenal Way, a profoundly traditional yet imaginative and creative expression of our faith.
Ralph Martin and his Partners (Steve Clark, NJ's Fr. Jim Ferry) who guided the Catholic Charismatic Renewal after 1967.
Rene Girard, assisted in the USA by Gil Baile, offers an insightful, refreshing new anthropology of "mimetics" which is imitation as the core of human conduct.
Father Benedict Groeschel, founded with his partners the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and was his own fresh, sane, loyal voice in the chaos after the Council.
Paul Vitz. Like Fr. Groeschel, an academic who blended sound psychology within a Catholic framework.
David L. Schindler. American protege of John Paul, Benedict and Balthasar; Godfather of the American Communio school and the John Paul Institute in DC; and incomparable Catholic critic of American culture.
Richard Neuhaus, Michael Novak, along with younger George Weigel, are influential Catholic Neoconservatives: defenders of Democratic Capitalism within the Catholic framework.
Father Michael Scanlon T.O.R. built Franciscan University of Steubenville into a Catholic powerhouse and contributed richly to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
Boomers
Giuseppe and Claudi Gennarini who brought the Neocatechumenal Way to the USA.
Disciples of Monsignor Giassani, many of the Italian college students in the 1960s, who built his inspirational vision into Communion and Liberation.
Scott Hahn who has led, in our time, a "neo-Oxford-Movement" of influential Protestant thinkers, pastors and theologians into the Catholic Church and deeply impacted Catholic theology, especially in scripture studies.
Bishop Robert Barron. Master catechist, protege of Balthasar, most influential American bishop of our time.
Heather King. A favorite of mine: contrite, brilliant, charming, eccentric, free-spirited.
We are additionally grateful, in these dark years of Pope Francis, for those who stand clearly and courageously, with Tradition, in correction and witness, resistant to the "synodal" (???) incoherence and confusion of the papacy: hierarchs like Mueller, Chaput, Burke, Zen, and laity like Reno, Arroyo, Royal and others.
Let us also remember the anonymous, little, humble ones who have labored over the decades in the home and parish...in the prolife movement, home schooling, Latin mass community, the new Catholic colleges (Benedictine, Franciscan, Ave Maria, etc.), recent religious orders, and a rich variety of intensive renewal Catholic environments...all breathing the fire of the Holy Spirit in traditional-yet-new manners.
As we survey this marvelous range of personalities we engage the history of salvation in our time and view, not a Catholic "bubble," but a Catholic Cosmos, flawed and fallible for sure, every dynamic and eventful, radiant in the splendor of the True, the Good, the Beautiful...truly the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. What a marvelous time to be Catholic!
I ask you, dear Reader, who have I missed? Who overrated or underrated?
Let us, in this month of the saints and the souls, give thanks for these holy, heroic souls who have enriched our Church in this, our time! You saints and angels Pray for Us!
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