of Roman Catholicism’s hagiologic purge set quipsters singing “When the Saints Go Marching Out,” a theme picked up in the title of Charles Merrill Smith’s new book. Then, as if to assure the world of saintly integrity, Pope Paul canonized the foundress of the Institute of the Sisters of our Lord, Blessed Julia Billiart.
But for the moment many saints are wandering somewhere between coming and going. The followers of St. Swithun, for example, must have wondered how to evaluate the weather for this July 15. Will their saint’s feast day continue to determine the weather for the following forty days? Will this ninth-century Archbishop of Canterbury, who requested burial in the churchyard so footsteps and rain would fall on his grave, appear on next year’s church calendar? Will this saint, whose faithful adherents moved his body into the church a century after his death, be moved out of the church year? The answers are still in Latin and still in Rome.
