Holy Heroes · By country
Witnesses of faith from England
Catholics from England remembered for their faith. No cause for canonization has been opened for them, so they are not candidates for sainthood.
Each profile gives a short account of the person's life, the exact stage of their cause in the Catholic Church and a prayer for private devotion. We keep two groups clearly apart: people with an open cause for beatification and canonization, and witnesses of faith for whom no cause has been opened.
To understand what each title means (Servant of God, Venerable, Blessed), read our guide to how canonization works, or browse all the heroes by stage of the cause.
Witnesses of faith · no open cause
No cause for beatification has been opened for the people below. They are not candidates for canonization; they are remembered here for the witness of their lives.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Oxford philologist and author of The Lord of the Rings; a daily communicant whose mother’s death as a Catholic convert and lifelong devotion to the Blessed Sacrament shaped a profoundly Catholic literary vision.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
English journalist, novelist and lay theologian — best known as G. K. Chesterton — who entered the Catholic Church in 1922. A giant of a man whose joyful, paradoxical faith fills books like Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, and The Innocence of Father Brown, where argument becomes hospitality and reason an act of thanksgiving.
Browse by stage of the cause