It may have been crass, but a reporter asked — and Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay wasn’t about to lie. They were, after all, standing within view of Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Basilica, Catholicism’s spiritual home.

“We met many people here — Spaniards, Italians, Australians — who told us they’re coming to Montreal and they’ll be going to St. Joseph’s Oratory,” Tremblay, a devout Catholic, told reporters in Rome following the Oct. 17 canonization of Brother André, the humble lay brother (born Alfred Bessette) who founded St. Joseph’s Oratory, Montreal’s most imposing landmark. “Today, two million people go to St. Joseph’s [annually]. I’m convinced more and more people will come because today Brother André is getting international recognition.”

Sainthood isn’t just good for the soul, it turns out. It’s also a boost to the newly haloed’s hometown economy. St. Joseph’s Oratory, which Bessette started as a rudimentary wood chapel in 1904, is nearing the end of a $10-million renovation in anticipation of a flood of new visitors.

The oratory had heavily advertised the sainthood, using a photo of Brother André and the tag line “A friend, a brother, a saint” in a major advertising campaign. There were ads on television and bus shelters, banners hanging from streetlights, a website, a Twitter feed and a Facebook page.

About 3,000 pilgrims from Quebec were in Rome to take part in the canonization, waving Quebec flags and singing “Gens du pays,” the province’s unofficial anthem.

Back home, two weeks later, about 30,000 devotees of the man now officially known as St. André Bessette gathered in Olympic Stadium for a thanksgiving mass. But the crowd was smaller than hoped for. Up to 50,000 had been expected, the same number that had packed the stadium in 1982 after he was beatified.

It’s unclear if the controversy surrounding the Congregation of Holy Cross, which Brother André belonged to and which still runs the oratory, had anything to with that smaller than anticipated 2010 audience. (Two weeks before the canonization, the congregation issued an apology for sexual abuse at a school it ran that sits across the street from St. Joseph’s.) Associations representing victims of abuse asked organizers of the Big O celebration to collect money for the people who have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of pedophile Catholic priests and lay brothers. The request was denied.

Even if more tourists do come to Montreal to take in St. Joseph’s — which has a soaring basilica, an impressive 56-bell carillon and displays of Brother Andre’s heart and tomb — they may not spend as much in Montreal as the mayor might hope. “Religious tourists probably tend to spend less money than average,” the head of Italy’s tourism board told USA Today last year. “Churches don’t cost anything to visit, and my guess is that for the most part, they are less likely to spend large sums on luxuries.” IE