Saints

For almost two decades, behind Archbishop Sheen’s extraordinary reach stood a largely unknown group of women who opened thousands of letters, recorded donations, thanked contributors, and helped transform his words into material support for missionaries and young churches around the world.

Ohio resident Rhoda Wise was a laywoman, a wife and an adoptive mother — but she was also a mystic, stigmatist, and now the candidate for sainthood could be declared venerable by the Church.

President Donald Trump issued a message July 28 marking the 45th anniversary of the martyrdom of Blessed Stanley Rother, the first American-born martyr to be beatified by the Catholic Church.

In Assisi, one of the main pilgrim draws is a tiny church dwarfed by its expansive surroundings, the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels near Assisi, Italy.