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　　Earlier this week I took a trip to Durham Cathedraland the tomb of St Cuthbert, a great saint of thenorth east, and a much-loved man who was variouslya hermit, monk and bishop. His simple tomb,illuminated by a few flickering candles, seemed aworld away from the hoo-ha in Rome over publicationof a book by investigative journalist Gabriele Nuzzi which details yet more financial scandals inthe Vatican.

　　You might have heard on this programme yesterday about the efforts of Pope Francis to cleanup the financial mismanagement of the Vatican and about Nuzzi’s revelations of certain peopleresisting any change.

　　Among the areas the Pope is tackling are the Catholic Church’s saint-making practices. Whilethe Church on the one hand has been diligent in recent years about who it canonizes, this hasled to large fees allegedly being paid to expert witnesses during pre-canonisation enquiries.Even more disturbing are Nuzzi’s claims of huge sums being spent on gifts for prelatesattending canonisations in Rome, and the lack of a proper accounting paper trail.

　　The simplest option might be to pull the plug on the whole saint-making business. After all,being a saint doesn’t depend on canonisation – that’s just the formal recognition of someonewho has led as good a life as possible, despite all their faults and foibles. But what officialrecognition does do is satisfy people’s need for heroes, for people we can look up to, asexamples of those who loved God and others. They encourage people when they struggle tobelieve and are signposts on the journey of discipleship. The saints might include the greatfounders of orders of friars, like Dominic and Francis, but they are also ordinary people like theItalian doctor and mother Gianna Beretta Molla, or someone like Maximilian Kolbe who readilygave up his life in Auschwitz so that someone else might live.

　　Making saints might be a multi-million pound business but it needn’t be. Men and women likeCuthbert used to become saints by public acclamation, honoured by those who treasured theirexample. That might be a way forward if Pope Francis struggles with his clean-up in Rome. Herein Britain we might acclaim Margaret Sinclair. The daughter of an Edinburgh dustman, she leftschool at 14, worked as a French polisher and was a trade union   activist before joining aconvent in London’s Notting Hill and dying of tuberculosis at the age of 25. There is nograndeur about her, just a very ordinary life extraordinarily well-lived – an ideal hero for ourtimes.