Former businessman John Rick Miller, who died of cancer in 2015 and founded the Catholic mission For The Love of God Worldwide with offices in 21 countries, can be canonized. Further consideration of his canonization was approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at its June 10 meeting in Florida.
Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski spoke in support of Miller's candidacy and his colleagues voted with him, the organization said. Miller's biography in the press release notes that he was born in New York in 1948, trained as a restaurateur and hotelier, and then “quickly rose through the ranks of a number of major corporations.”
In 2019, Miller was mentioned on the Archdiocese of Miami website as a former “executive director of a number of companies,” including British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
Since the company's founding, however, it has had four directors, among whom Miller was not. Among his other places of employment, the note listed the largest US food company Cargill, as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where he was allegedly a managing director. This information is also not confirmed in other sources.
US Bishops Affirm Advancement of a Cause of Beatification and Canonization for the Servant of God John Rick Miller, Lay Person
The bishops of the United States held a canonical consultation on a cause of beatification and canonization for the Servant of God John Rick Miller, a… pic.twitter.com/A8pQMRo15J
— US Conference of Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) June 10, 2026
By the way, Miller’s mission website notes that he retired from entrepreneurship in 1998, that is, a year before the founding of the united company AstraZeneca. It is not specified whether Miller could have worked for the British company Zeneca Group before its merger with the Swedish Astra. Newsweek generally characterizes the businessman's biography as “mysterious.”
As the USCCB noted, Miller began missionary work in Egypt and Great Britain in the 1980s, and in the 2000s he planned the construction of religious buildings in India together with the Catholic Pallotine Society.
In 2009, he founded the For the Love of God Worldwide Mission, with most of its missions in South America. Colombian media reported that the country was the first country to allow the founding of a prayer group for Miller's organization in 2008, with the approval of President Alvaro Uriba Vélez.
The mission's website emphasizes that the main four pillars of the organization, which continued to operate after Miller's death, were dedication, metanoia (repentance), heartfelt prayer and good works. The Conference of Catholic Bishops notes that Miller's grave on the grounds of the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Doral, Florida, has become a site of pilgrimage for the faithful in recent years.
