Wilmington's Catholic Diocese is in the running to have its first saint.
Father Paul Wattson was born on Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1863. As an Episcopal and then Catholic priest in New York, he opened St. Christopher's Inn, a large shelter for homeless and alcoholic men that's still open today.
He also started the Franciscan Society of the Atonement in Graymoor, N.Y.
"You have to take a look at how his work has spread and endured," says Wilmington Diocese spokesman Robert Krebs. "Father Paul Wattson died in 1940, and to this very day we still see the fruit of his efforts, so that in and of itself makes him a candidate to be considered for canonization."
Those efforts are perhaps most visible in Wattson's prayer week for the unification of all Christian denominations. It began around the turn of the century, and Krebs says the next one begins Monday, Jan. 18: "Something that was begun over 100 years ago by Father Paul Wattson, a guy from Millington, Maryland," he says, laughing.
Krebs says Wattson is a figure all Christians can be proud of.
"[The prayer week is] something that's connecting us with one another as Christians, connecting us with this great man who may be a saint one day," he says.
Krebs says there have been saints who worked in the diocese and in Maryland before, but, to his knowledge, never one who was born there.
Wattson is only at the start of the canonization process. Since last fall, the archdiocese of New York has been gathering information on him and his works to send to the Vatican. There, the Pope will evaluate it. He'll also have to determine whether Wattson performed at least two miracles.
The Wilmington diocese has produced this short documentary about Wattson's life:
