I don’t mean disrespect, but I hope some future pope will wise up and canonize deceased people who, though not Catholic, magnificently embodied Christ’s example and teachings. What a giant step that would be in acknowledging all of God’s children!

Here’s my short list of towering figures of my own lifetime, ones whose practice of virtue eclipses that of millions of the avowedly pious. I think I’ll send it to Pope Benedict XVI, though probably it will be tucked into some archive.

But maybe it’ll catch the attention of some successor, a few more popes down the apostolic line:

MAHATMA GANDHI, that gentle Hindu saint, once said he’d gladly embrace Christianity himself if he ever saw people seriously practicing it. By default, he took Jesus’ teachings, melded them into his own faith tradition, and spent a lifetime of simplicity and selfless dedication.

He confronted the world’s most powerful nation with no weapons but compassion, non-violence, and love; and he broke their arrogant spirit and sent them packing from his country. Gandhi’s reward was martyrdom at the hands, perhaps inevitably, of a religious zealot who could not stand this peaceful sign of contradiction.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, in deep admiration of Gandhi, drew the Hindu saint and martyr’s example back into his own devout Christianity. With a prophet’s power and surety, King preached equal rights for all humans. For his Christian witness to equality, he suffered insults, indignities, and physical violence to match the ordeals of the Mahatma. And, in the end, he was murdered, like Gandhi, by a true believer in the bigotry he gently opposed.

And NELSON MANDELA, deep admirer of Gandhi and of King, spent almost thirty years in prison for daring to witness against apartheid in South Africa. When finally freed and elected the country’s first Black president, he firmly steered the huge native population away from any revenge on the tiny white minority that had so abused them and their human rights.

What a hero! What a saint! Those three would be a good start, thought Mandela’s canonization would probably have to wait until after his death.

And so would recognition of Bishop Desmond Tutu, who also belongs on the list. If you’d like to propose further names, I’d welcome them and will forward them along to my brother Benedict in Rome. While we’re at it, I also want to note that you and I constantly cross paths with saints in our daily lives _ men and women whose beautiful virtue radiates from them in loving service to others. Since there’s little chance that the Vatican will ever get around to recognizing them, I’m going to propose them to you for canonization in the old way, before the Pope got the corner on the franchise. The old way was by acclamation by all the people. That’s we, the people.

And so here's my short list, first, of deceased locals who were Saints in my book. First, I offer for your acclamation Saint George of Feed Store Road. That’s Fly Creek’s George Badgley, a Quaker’s Quaker who blessed this area with his ministry for the last decades of his almost 100 years. George incarnated the Friends’ ideals of simplicity, peace-making, integrity, community, and equality. He was a tall, sober man, tempered a bit by the Puritanism that gave Quakerism its birth.

But he was generous and great-hearted, too, and had a sly humor that never failed to delight.

The great work of George’s later life was prison visitation. He not only visited and counseled at our local jail but often followed prisoners that he’d met there to visit them at Auburn, Coxsackie, and even to Woodbourne, the forbidding maximum-security prison in Sullivan County. (I once visited the last-mentioned with George; the chill of those long corridors is still in my bones.)

Now, ten years after failing health ended those visits of compassion, prisoners still recall their ``old Mr. Badgley’’ and the strength he gave them simply by caring. Though George would scoff at a papist title like ``Saint,’’ he’s one in my book and always will be.

And let me also propose Saint Helen the United Methodist. Cooperstown’s Methodists miss her greatly, and so do I. Helen Tyrell, carried on a ministry of Christian love for scores of years. A friend of mine, now in his seventies, remembers her from his own impoverished youth. Helen was a school cafeteria manager back then, and always laid out a massive turkey dinner just before Thanksgiving and Christmas.

``In those depression days, she knew that the feast would be the only one those kids would enjoy.’’ The old boy chuckled. ``Then she’d send kids home with all the turkey racks [carcasses], so a lot of soup got made.’’

People around Cooperstown could pile on more stories of Saint Helen’s continued goodness. I knew her best through our own jail ministry. She’d sweep into the Detention Center, radiating maternal light ``to those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow.’’ And she was a true mother to many of the young prisoners, offering firm teaching and tough love that was like water on wilted plants.

Oh, and there’s also Saint Jean the Methodist. (Methodists are really good at turning them out!) That’s Jean Wyckoff of Cooperstown. Her loving service extended far beyond her own congregation, and she was a beloved figure in a score of good works. Jean’s sweet temper and openness made her a spontaneous confidante for dozens of people; if United Methodists have mother confessors, Jean was surely one. Call her Saint Jean, I say, and thank God for all she was to so many.

OK, I'm fast-forwarding in my imagination, maybe a hundred years. Behind his Vatican desk sits His Holiness Pope John XXVI, a tall and dignified African whose ebony skin contrasts magnificently with his white cassock and skullcap.

The Pope is deeply engrossed at his laptop when the eight-foot doors of his study open and close behind the Vatican archivist, Bishop Margaret Lloyd. In her forties, she came to Rome only ten years after the first ordinations of women. Today she is very excited. ``Holy Father, forgive my interrupting, but I have found a document you must see! It is an old letter to a predecessor of yours. I think the letter carries a message; I would almost say, an inspiration.’’

John XXVI smiles as she hands him the yellowed letter; he reads it carefully.

Halfway through, his smile broadens beautifully. He is nodding slowly as he reaches the end.

READ ABOUT Jim Atwell’s book, “From Fly Creek--Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country,” at JimAtwell. com