How many saints are there and is there a comprehensive list?

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Tis_Bearself

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I was wondering today about the total number of saints recognized by the Roman Catholic church?

And is there a comprehensive list or database of all of them anywhere that the public can read it?
 
Of the ones canonized since the formalization of the canonization process in 1153? i would believe so. However, one could really get into the weeds with those who were canonized by the authority of a bishop before 1153, as many of those records are lost to time.
 
All I know is, I’ve heard that number is at least in the thousands
 
The closest you could get to a complete “list” (just a list though) would be the Roman Martyrology published by the Vatican. Don’t be confused by the title – it started out as a list of martyrs but eventually every other type of saint got added in too. That’s just a list of the saints, though, it doesn’t have like an article on each saint. (And it’s probably not complete, despite the Vatican’s best efforts.) It contained 7,000 saints and blesseds in 2004 – updated editions since that time contain more saints but I’m not sure how many more.

Assuming the Roman Martyrology doesn’t have the details you’re looking for, the best thing you could probably get is Butler’s Lives of Saints. Complete versions have many volumes of articles on the saints, based on the best primary sources the editors can find. However, Butler’s Lives is usually sold in various levels of incompleteness, because the full number of volumes would be cost prohibitive for most people. So usually the ones you can find in Catholic bookstores just have an interesting saint or two for each day of the week.
 
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Butler’s lives of the Saints lists 1,458 just a bit of trivia and it does not even cover 19th and 20th century saints, I believe.
 
Do you mean on the calendar of Saints? Do you mean every Saint to ever live? Since the Church doesn’t have an answer to that, that’s why we celebrate All Saints Day. I wish I could be of more help.
 
I don’t think it’s possible for me to have a list of “every Saint that ever lived” since that would be everybody in heaven, which (I hope) would be a huge number in the billions at the very least by now.

I just would like a list of all the saints formally recognized by the Roman Church, either through canonization processes or by the official acceptance of some traditional saint who was venerated before the pre-canonization days.
 
The number I’ve heard is “over 10 000”, but I don’t know if there’s single list that shows that many.
 
I need not remind, but despite the number, it is fully intended that you be one of them. We can count them later!
 
On Saints, hope you don’t mind me going a bit off topic,

I need a Saint for Blacksmiths to give to someone.

Anyone know of good saints for Blacksmiths
 
The patron saints of blacksmiths are St. (Pope) Clement I, who is patron of “metalworkers and blacksmiths”, or St. Dunstan, who some sites say is patron of blacksmiths and metalsmiths in general, and other sites say is the patron of goldsmiths and silversmiths.

I’d just give the person both saints.

Edited to add, here’s a fun legend about St. Dunstan grabbing the devil by the nose with a pair of smith’s tongs.

http://stepneycityfarm.org/the-patr...ing_wp_cron=1515419063.8886790275573730468750

Here’s a page about St. Clement’s Day celebrations for blacksmiths

en.wikipedia.org

Saint Clement's Day - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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po18guy said:
I need not remind, but despite the number, it is fully intended that you be one of them. We can count them later!
Click to expand...
Well, I’m trying to…
I’m asking because I’m doing this exercise where you pray an indulgence for a deceased person for every communion you receive, and you have to designate a different saint to pray with you each time. Then that saint becomes part of your Holy Alliance and you ask the whole Holy Alliance to pray with you and send grace to a living person. I have enough saints lined up to take me through probably a year or two more of this, but at some point I will run out of the saints currently on my list and I will need sources of new saints to add to my Holy Alliance.

If I try to do one of these every day (currently the plan as I’m supposed to be going to Mass every day for a different prayer program) then I will add 300+ saints in a year and will need to find more. I’ve already added about 40 since I started doing this in November. If I live long enough / keep this up long enough I could get into thousands of saints. I met a lady online who has been doing this for a few years and has over 1000 saints in her Holy Alliance.

In case anybody else is interested in doing this, here’s the discussion of the Holy Alliance prayer program. I was already praying to get the plenary indulgences for deceased before I learned about this, but the Holy Alliance idea is a nice addition. I made an XL sheet to keep track of who I pray for and which saints I add to my Alliance.

 
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I use the website saintinfo or something like that, it is connected to the Laudate app (which is how I usually use it). Many many saints there are.
 
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There are many editions called “Dictionary of Saints” or “Book of Saints”, I’ve read there are around 20.000 saints half of which are martyrs…

Personally, I use an older edition -containing around 10.000- (PDF of 1921 edition is free) of:
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Saints-Comprehensive-Biographical-Dictionary/dp/0567664562
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

"Now fully revised and updated The Book of Saints is a comprehensive biographical dictionary of saints canonised by the Roman Catholic Church. It contains the names of over 10,000 saints, including all modern ones, with significant information about their lives and achievements. Each section begins with an illustration of a particular saint, and the volume includes a list of national martyrs, a bibliography, and a helpful glossary.

Produced by the Benedictine monks of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Chilworth (formerly Ramsgate) this classic resource is now in its 8th edition, and is fully revised to include all the saints canonised in the last ten years, including Pope St John Paul II and Blessed Paul VI."
 
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That’s where I go a lot, too. They’ve migrated from one URL to another over the years, but I always know them by their fancy letters. 😄

Even for that site, though, I wouldn’t necessarily say with certainty that their list is exhaustive. According to their main page, they have “14,705 saints, beati, venerables and feasts” listed on the site.
 
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Well, to be fair, we have no idea how many people are in heaven 😍
 
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