No Opportunity for Heroic Virtue?

Paul Burnell, writing in a BBC News article about the putative miracle and possible canonization of Cardinal Newman, asks why there are few English Catholic saints:

Catholic writer Dr William Oddie said it is difficult to pinpoint the reason.

"In a lot of ways England is a bit of a backwater in the Catholic Church - we're really pretty small beer.

"It could be there has been less opportunity to live a heroic life in the modern era."

The former Editor of The Catholic Herald added: "Maybe the English haven't been holy enough."

However Dr Oddie is quick to nominate another English candidate for sainthood - the writer GK Chesterton.

"He was a man of immense holiness - he would also be the first journalist to be canonised."

Less opportunity to live a heroic life in the modern era? Perhaps Dr. Oddie is a hermit and has no contact with the modern world. How else to explain his ignorance of the opportunity provided by the world today? We still have family, work, and culture (and I think England does as well) -- all of which are attacked by the modern world. Yes, that is where virtue comes in to play.