From time to time this column has highlighted the need to reform the process of identifying and promoting candidates for canonization, without suggesting that those whom the Church has canonized in the past were somehow unworthy of the honor.

The Second Vatican Council introduced a broader perspective, emphasizing the role of saints as models and exemplars of the Christian life, alongside that of saints as intercessors and miracle-workers (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, n. 50).

Since the overwhelming majority of Catholics are lay persons who will never be martyred for the faith, and since the great majority of the laity are, or have been, married, with children and grandchildren, we should be seeing by now, 40 years after Vatican II, some evidence of a new trend toward canonizing mostly married lay men and lay women rather than priests, nuns, and martyrs, however deserving those in the latter categories might be. But such is still not the case.

Just before Christmas, during a private audience with Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Pope Benedict XVI authorized the congregation to promulgate pertinent decrees designed to facilitate the promotion of various individuals already in the "Venerable" status to beatification, and of those already in the "Blessed" status to sainthood.

Although generally regarded as a routine step for a pope to take, reflecting his confidence in the judgment of the congregation and its prefect, the formal approval of these latest lists of candidates for canonization would give pause to anyone concerned about the council's lasting impact on the pastoral and spiritual life of the Church.

Among those in the "Venerable" status who now have a miracle officially attributed to them, thereby rendering them eligible for beatification, are an Italian diocesan priest who, in the early 20th century, founded a small contemplative order of sisters, the Sisters of Christ the King, another Italian diocesan priest who founded the Secular Institute of the Little Apostles of Charity, also in the last century, a third Italian diocesan priest, a priest from India who ministered to "untouchables," a religious-order priest from Holland who did missionary work in Brazil, the Italian foundress of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Carmel, the German-born foundress of the Congregation of Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus, the Italian foundress of the Institute of Crucified Sisters Adorers of the Holy Eucharist, and an Italian Carmelite nun.

Others who are currently on the path toward eventual sainthood include two who have already been beatified: a 15th-century Polish Franciscan priest and a 15th/16th-century Italian nun. Those in the initial "Servant of God" category (which comes before one is declared "Venerable") include a 16th-century Italian bishop, a 20th century Italian bishop, an Italian diocesan priest who founded the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family in the 19th century, a German professed religious, the Italian foundress of the Congregation of Reparatrix Sisters of the Sacred Heart in the 19th century, and the first directress of the Teresian Institute, a lay woman who never married.

There were also 34 individuals, many of whom were lay persons, who were killed during the Spanish Civil War and are considered martyrs for the faith. Only two of these martyrs are explicitly named in the recent papal decree: a Franciscan priest and a married man with a child or children, who was also a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic.

Again, no question is being raised here about the worthiness of any of these candidates for eventual canonization. The only issue is whether it is prudent for church officials to continue presenting bishops, priests, nuns, martyrs, and unmarried lay persons as our virtually exclusive models of Christian holiness when the overwhelming majority of Catholics are lay persons who are or have been married, and most of them with children and grandchildren.

It is likely that the causes of these various candidates were already in process during the previous pontificate. If so, Pope Benedict XVI may still do something to reverse this centuries-old tradition and begin identifying and promoting candidates who led lives with which almost all Catholics can readily identify.

Until now, the greatest of the Church's saints have been bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and martyrs-the major exception, of course, being the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. One readily thinks of Francis of Assisi, Augustine, Peter and Paul, Teresa of Ávila, Ignatius of Loyola, Benedict of Nursia, Vincent de Paul, Francis de Sales, and so many others like them.

In time, one hopes that there will be other names, in other walks of life.

Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.