Blessed Solanus Casey Scholarship Advanced Through Graduate-Student Essay Contest
By: OSV News
Declared “venerable” in 1995, Blessed Solanus spent time in Yonkers and Manhattan during his life
DETROIT (OSV News) — Promotions of sainthood causes take many directions. For Blessed Solanus Casey, the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Joseph in Detroit decided on a scholarly path with an essay prize for graduate students.
Blessed Solanus Casey (1870-1957), born Bernard Francis Casey to an Irish immigrant family in Oak Grove, Wisconsin, was famed for his good works and help for the poor in Yonkers, Manhattan, Detroit, and Huntington, Ind. He showed, according to a biography on the website promoting his cause for canonization, that holiness is attainable, and demonstrated that an ordinary person can live an extraordinarily faithful life.
This was the second year for the contest, with cash-award prizes awarded to Kaile Kilner and Barry Mark Okeyo, both studying at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and César A. Cruz, a doctoral student at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif.
A cause for his canonization began in 1960. St. John Paul II declared him “venerable” in 1995 in recognition of his heroic virtues, and Pope Francis announced his beatification in 2017.
A steady stream of favor reports
Since then, “we’ve received hundreds of favor reports from people who sought his intercession,” said Capuchin Franciscan Father Edward Foley, vice postulator of the sainthood cause, referring to descriptions of possible miracles, including physical healings, attributed to Blessed Solanus’ prayers.
“The Vatican requires strict confidentiality around individual cases, and privacy laws like HIPAA mean we can’t speak to specific reports publicly, but the sheer volume tells its own story,” Father Foley told OSV News. “At this point, we believe it’s a matter of when, not if, Solanus will be canonized.”
One miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Solanus has been approved by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. A second approved miracle is typically needed before canonization.
About 120,000 pilgrims visit the Solanus Casey Center in Detroit every year to pray at his tomb, Father Foley said, “and we continue to receive a steady stream of prayer intentions seeking his intercession, by mail, email, social media and handwritten notes left at the tomb itself.”
Three winning essays, three perspectives
First place in the essay contest, with a $2,500 prize, went to Kilner, a laywoman pursuing a master’s degree in theology at Catholic Theological Union, for “Written on the Heart: Blessed Solanus Casey’s Embodiment of ‘Notes about Special Cases.'”
Kilner’s essay examines Blessed Solanus’ collected “Notes about Special Cases,” the notebooks in which he tracked decades of encounters with the people who came to him for prayer and counsel, as a work of theological literature in its own right.
Second place went to Okeyo, a Maryknoll seminarian from Kenya also pursuing a master’s degree at Catholic Theological Union, for “From Cell to Threshold: The Novitiate Formation Program of Blessed Solanus Casey and Its Living Expression in His Pastoral Ministry.” It centers on a handwritten notebook from Blessed Solanus’ novitiate years containing five formation principles he titled “Means for Acquiring the Love of God,” along with two supplementary resolutions.
Third place went to Cruz, a layman and doctoral student at the Pacific School of Religion, for “The Porter and the Prisoner: Francis Solanus Casey, Israa Ja’abis and the Theology of the Door.” The essay places Blessed Solanus’ vocation as monastery porter, a ministry exercised, quite literally, through a door, into conversation with the testimony of Israa Ja’abis, a Palestinian Muslim woman held as a political prisoner, whom Cruz heard speak in April 2026.
Scholarship to accompany devotion
“This year’s winning essays remind us how many fresh insights remain to be drawn from the life and ministry of Blessed Solanus,” Father Foley said.
The essays may appear in a future book. Father Foley said the Capuchins chose to draw attention to Blessed Solanus’ cause through an essay contest in order to advance scholarship, in addition to devotion.
“Sainthood causes tend to lean on the familiar tools, such as relics, novenas, pilgrimage, film,” Father Foley said. “We wanted to do something that would also deepen the intellectual and theological record on Solanus, not just the devotional one. Devotion to Solanus is already strong; we wanted to make sure the scholarship keeps pace with it.”
The Capuchin order, an arm of the Franciscans, was founded in 1525. The Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Joseph, known as the Midwest Capuchins, was founded in 1857.