Not much is as American as apple pie—unless it’s making apple pie and eating it on Election Day while watching the results come in.

Blessed Stanley Rother and Blessed Michael McGivney are exemplars of priestly courage, leadership and pastoral charity. Both are a source of encouragement, not only for seminarians but also for those of us already ordained.

The penitential rite was necessary to purify the church from the stain of a “gravely injurious act,” such as a homicide, before normal religious activities could resume, according to a Nov. 1 statement on the website of the Diocese of Nice.

Blessed Michael J. McGivney was a priest of the Eight Beatitudes because he lived them “so consistently and thoroughly” as a parish priest and as the founder of the Knights of Columbus, said Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, the Knights’ supreme chaplain.

More than 150 million Americans are expected to cast ballots this year. Father Isaac Makovo will be among those voting in a presidential election for the first time.