Why Rome? Why has Rome, along with the rest of Italy, been the home of so many saints and blesseds throughout the history of the Church? It’s impossible to arrive at a precise total for the number of Christians who have died as martyrs since our Lord’s Passion and Death, but calculating the number of non-martyrs is much more straightforward. And in that calculation, Rome and Italy easily beat every other country in our modern world.

Modern Italy can boast a grand total of 1077 non-martyr saints3, greatly exceeding modern France, at 720. For comparison, younger countries like the US can only claim 13 non-martyr saints and blesseds, while even Catholic Ireland can only name 49.