Saint Tom of Northern Virginia? Father who died saving son's life considered for canonization

 Story by David Fawcett

Saint Tom of Northern Virginia? Father who died saving son's life considered for canonization

One afternoon in the spring of 2022, Keith Henderson met his former priest for lunch when a timely topic arose during their conversation.

Father Jerome Fasano, the retired pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Front Royal, mentioned to Henderson that their diocese could have its first saint.

Desiring additional details, Henderson listened as Fasano recounted the story of Tom Vander Woude and his selfless act. On Sept. 8, 2008, Vander Woude died at the age of 66 while rescuing his son Joseph after he fell into a septic tank on the family farm in Nokesville.

Vander Woude pushed 19-year-old Joseph, who has Down Syndrome, out of the sewage, but he then slipped back beneath the surface as toxic gas filled up his lungs. Attempts were made to revive him after he was pulled out, but Vander Woude died later that day at the hospital.

Up until this point, Henderson, who lives in Warren County, knew nothing about Vander Woude. But so moved by what he learned, Henderson met with Fasano again and agreed Vander Woude should be a saint.

Then, he took it one step further. Retired with extra time on his hands, Henderson felt called to do something else: Help lay the groundwork that could ultimately lead to Vander Woude's canonization.

There was no guarantee, of course, Vander Woude would become a saint, but Henderson wanted to give it a try. It was the least he could do for someone he believed worthy of consideration.

"Tom was a wonderful model of a devout and faithful Catholic man," Henderson told InsideNoVa, "a man that our diocese needed to honor as a servant of God and hopefully much more if it is God's will."

The process

Becoming a saint in the Catholic church is no easy task. It requires extensive background work and meeting specific criteria and protocols.

Sometimes, the canonization process moves quickly, like it did for Mother Teresa. She became a saint in just under 19 years after she died in 1997. Mostly, though, the process takes a while, with no definitive end date as it moves through four stages once a cause for sainthood has been opened.

Currently, there are 11 canonized U.S. saints, the most recent being in 2015. All of them lived from the 17th century through the mid-20th century.

Traditionally, people became saints through two categories: martyrdom and heroic virtue. But in July 2017, Pope Francis opened a third option: the offer of one's life. Vander Woude's life and action fit this category best.

The path toward sainthood starts at the diocesan level before moving to the Vatican for final approval.

To get Vander Woude's case off the ground, Henderson formed a nonprofit in July 2022 called the Tom Vander Woude Guild. The guild began with a four-person board of directors based in Front Royal: himself, Fasano, Rick Von Her and John Lundberg. Henderson is the guild's chairman, Fasano is the treasurer, Lundberg is the secretary and Von Her is the guild's vice chairman. All Catholic converts, Henderson, Von Her and Lundberg are friends who attend St. John the Baptist.

The next step came when the guild asked the Diocese of Arlington to consider opening a cause for sainthood for Vander Woude. The diocese oversees 21 Virginia counties and had 431,000 registered parishioners in 2025.

After obtaining enough information from the guild regarding Vander Woude, Michael F. Burbidge, the diocesan bishop, made an important decision.

In April 2024, Burbidge agreed to name the diocese as the petitioner for Vander Woude's case by signing two documents to further explore why Vander Woude should be a saint. As the petitioner, the diocese becomes the promoter of the cause and assumes the financial obligations and expenses.

More: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/saint-tom-of-northern-virginia-father-who-died-saving-son-s-life-considered-for-canonization/ar-AA24i0ZN?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=6a19b596ebf340d485911119c638e4c4&ei=13

The Spirit of Truth “outside the visible confines of the Mystical Body”

“The firm belief of the followers of the SSPX is an effect of the Spirit of truth operating outside the visible confines of the Mystical Body."

(Cf. John Paul II,Redemptor Hominis, n. 6)

Conscience and Faith

“Members of the SSPX have the sacred and inalienable right to follow their consciences in religious matters."

- Benedict XVI, Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, n. 26

The false equivalence between the SSPX and Protestant heretics like Martin Luther

Michael Sirilla:

A common misunderstanding I see among Catholics regarding the SSPX involves a facile and erroneous likening of the Society to Martin Luther and/or Protestantism in general.  The claim is made: the SSPX, like Luther, substitutes their private judgment for that of the Church’s Magisterium.

So I’d like to bring a little clarity here: the principal issue with Martin Luther, as with all heretics, is the substitution of private judgment for the Magisterium on mysteries of faith.  Luther denied the papacy, many of the sacraments, the need for good works, etc.  All of these truths of faith are matters of infallible Magisterial teaching.

The principal issue with the SSPX is fundamentally different.  With the Society, the issue is obedience and the allegation of schism, not heresy.  And this difference is significant.  They do not deny any infallibly-defined truth of faith.  They don’t, like Luther and other heretics, substitute their private judgment for Magisterial teaching.  

Regarding schism, it’s truly a difficult matter - one about which doctoral dissertations in Canon Law have been written (for example, Fr. Gerald Murray from EWTN wrote an important dissertation on the Society and schism).  The Society does not intend to set up a hierarchical/juridical structure parallel to that of Christ’s Church.  But their bishops do materially disobey the pope when consecrating new bishops (as in 1988 and, forthcoming in July).  Whether that amounts to formal (and culpable) disobedience is a matter of genuine good-faith debate.

So one of the essential questions to resolve, theologically and canonically, is whether or not that material disobedience is permissible (something all law - divine, natural, and human - has always recognized): for example, speeding in a 25 mph zone to get someone to the hospital before they bleed to death.  Honest and good theologians and canonists on all sides of this issue recognize that this is not a simple matter.  It really isn’t like Lutheranism or Protestantism at all.  And unlike in matters of defined dogmas, the Church is not infallible in her juridical decisions (see, e.g., St. Joan of Arc).

@msirilla1

Retirement of Father Kevin M. Cusick

I am retiring as pastor of Saint Francis de Sales effective July 8 after 16 blessed years.

I remain grateful in particular to our Holy Father of blessed memory, Pope Benedict XVI, for reminding the Church and the world of the truth that the sacred is a perennial value for the Church and that the holy Mass, which was sacred everywhere and for everyone before the 1960s, is sacred, good and holy, for us today as well.

Presidential Message on U.S. Catholic Bishops Honoring the 250th Anniversary of American Independence

The White House 

June 11, 2026

Today, Melania and I join in prayer with Catholic Bishops gathered in Orlando, Florida, as they consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the occasion of our 250th year of American Independence—a powerful moment in our national story and a poignant reminder that America has always been guided by the loving hand of God.

Even in the centuries before the United States was conceived in nationhood, America was a land of prayer, a place of miracles, and home to some of the most faithful and devoted Christians to ever live.  From the heroic bands of Christian missionaries, settlers, and explorers who tamed the unknown to spread the Gospel to the priests, chaplains, and churchgoers who forged our spirit in every generation since, the love of Jesus Christ has stood at the center of our identity and way of life.

Inspired by this proud birthright of faith, just years after the end of the Revolutionary War, Bishop John Carroll—the first Catholic bishop in the United States and cousin of Catholic Founding Father Charles Carroll—consecrated our young Republic to Mary, the Mother of God.  Today, this grand legacy of faith in America reaches yet another historic milestone as America’s Catholic Bishops consecrate our Nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, during which they will prayerfully “celebrate the abundant gifts” that God has “given this nation, founded on the self-evident truths that our Creator has endowed all people with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  And following today’s consecration, on June 12, Christians in the United States and around the world will celebrate the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, a joyful celebration of God’s boundless love for all His creation.

This year’s Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus also fittingly marks the anniversary of one of the most momentous days in Western civilization’s long twilight struggle against atheistic communism.  On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered his historic address at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, in which he famously implored Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

Toward the end of his remarks, President Reagan identified what he called “the most fundamental distinction of all between East and West:  The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship.”

President Reagan recounted the construction by the communist East German government of a mighty television tower in the 1960s.  “Virtually ever since,” Reagan said, “the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the tower’s one major flaw, treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind.  Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere, that sphere that towers over all Berlin, the light makes the sign of the cross.  There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed.”

On that very day, just over 200 miles away, Pope Saint John Paul II, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, was speaking in his native Poland.  On the Westerplatte peninsula, the place where, in an extraordinary display of heroic virtue, an isolated force of around 200 Polish warriors held out for 7 days against approximately 4,000 German troops attacking from sea, land, and air in the opening days of World War II, the Pope challenged a gathering of Polish youth:  “Each of you, young friends, also finds your own ‘Westerplatte’ in life.  A set of tasks that must be undertaken and fulfilled.  A just cause that you cannot simply fail to fight for.  A duty, an obligation, from which you cannot shirk.  You cannot ‘desert.’  Finally—a certain order of truths and values that must be ‘upheld’ and ‘defended,’ just as at Westerplatte, within oneself and around oneself.  Yes, defended—for oneself and for others.”

Pope Saint John Paul II closed by quoting the words of a Polish martyr.  “More horrifying than a defeat of arms is the defeat of the human spirit.”

Thanks to the moral leadership of President Reagan and Pope Saint John Paul II, the tireless work and determination of free men and women around the world, and the moral witness of millions who endured prolonged suffering within the Captive Nations, the godless forces of Soviet communism were vanquished—and the human spirit triumphed.

Today, nearly four decades later, our Nation and our culture confront a new set of menacing ideologies seeking once again to cast God out from our society.  But today, as Catholic Bishops consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in this 250th year of our Independence, we recommit ourselves, like President Reagan and Pope Saint John Paul II, to defending our spiritual identity and great civilizational inheritance.  Above all, we pray that America will continue for the next 250 years, and beyond, to be a land of faith, a country of miracles, and a light and glory to all nations.

National Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

 To take place today throughout the United States

                  PRAYER OF CONSECRATION 

 

O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:
You know the longings of our hearts,
and you desire that we enjoy friendship with you.
 

From your pierced side, 
you have poured out the wellspring of
life, for which we thirst.
Your heart burns with a love for all people to return to a right
relationship with you.
 

We celebrate the abundant gifts you have given this nation,
founded on the self-evident truths
that our Creator has endowed all people
with the right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.
 

We make reparation for the offenses against you
and against human dignity
that have taken place in this nation.
 

May our hearts be united to yours,
so that our families and communities
enjoy peace and happiness;
may broken relationships be reconciled,
injustices repaired,
and the wounds of our land be healed.
 

May your holy Catholic Church serve as a sign,
pointing all people to your infinite love.
 

O Desire of Nations and Center of History,
we ask you to bless these United States of America.
Who live and reign with God the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
 

Amen.