It cheapens canonization and turns it into a posthumous form of boot-licking for the deceased boss. This baleful trend started with John Paul II who was a great man. If worthy of canonization he should have received it two centuries from now instead of the unseemly rush that saw him raised to the honors of the altar nine years after his death. Rapid canonizations should be accompanied by lots of real miracles and not play the lottery healings that are a function of some medical conditions resolving themselves in a manner we do not yet understand. Saint Benedict Joseph Labre had 136 healings, real miracles, within three months of his death in obscurity, and he wasn’t canonized until 1881, 98 years after his death. That is the way it should be done. Make Canonizations Rare Again!
Gold Watch
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Bring back the Devil’s Advocate!
Sheer politics. Can’t wait until the Lavender Mafia presses for sainthood for Francis. But it took 400 years for the church to canonize two martyrs, St Thomas More and St. Joan of Arc.
It’s all politics. Politics fouls everything. You have these efforts at sainthood but it took 400 years for the church to canonize two Saints, St Thomas More and St Joan of Arc.
“ It cheapens ____ and turns ____ “
“couples” – marriage
“minister” – holy orders
Not surprising.
To me, the worse problem is that they’ve seemingly been slow walking or rushing canonizations based on social concerns.
They only recently announced the canonization of Bishop Fulton Sheen. 20 something years after his cause was initialized and some 46 years after his death.
Possibly the greatest American evangelist to have ever lived!
On the other hand, a kid who made a website gets canonized around 19 years after his death with great “fanfare”.
The Lavender Mafia is at work here, they can’t canonize Francis before Benedict. But after Benedict, Francis can be spun as “another pope” and “the one chosen”.
The Oprah-fication of Sainthood…it is incredibly unseemly.
I do a podcast with my brother and father on the Baseball Hall of Fame and I will often draw a mild comparison between the process of HOF election and canonization; the one I like to make is usually we already kind of instinctively know whether that individual belongs.
If you have to hem and haw and stretch things to convince people, I’d be willing to bet that person shouldn’t be included, HOF or sainthood. The railroading style rush of canonization is also a tell – just on the other side of the coin.
I’ve agreed about this when there are no miracles. If an investigation concludes that there was a miracle, then the Church should do what its Founder is telling it to.
There has been an open theological debate as to whether canonizations fall under the scope of papal infallibility … When Farancis in canonized, we’ll have our answer.
As for B16, they should make him the patron saint of teachers who hide in the library from difficult classrooms.
RANT WARNING. TL/DR: The canonization process has become less than credible, IMO.
We have gone, just in the past 126 years, from a process where non-martyrs required FOUR verified miracles for beatification and TWO MORE for canonization, with a “Devil’s Advocate” who argued the case against canonization, and a step-by-step process requiring numerous back-and-forth communications between Rome and the local diocese, to a process with no D.A., requiring only one miracle for beatification and one more for canonization, no miracle required for anyone deemed a martyr, and with the local diocese effectively out of the process after the initial submission. No wonder so many have been canonized recently.
I must say that when I ran the question of changes in the process since 1900 through Grok, I was surprised to find just how much the whole thing has been, well, dumbed down. (Just like the Mass and the Divine Office, but that’s another story, or is it?) And, sadly, most of the dumbing-down seems to have occurred under JP II, whose 1983 Canon Law revisions accomplished most of these changes in one fell swoop. Benedict XVI and Francis the Worst followed with even more dumb-downs.
It amused me to note that Grok peppered its response with favorable comments, about how slow and complicated the process used to be, and how making it faster and less complicated is a great “reform.” I beg to differ.
As Donald noted above, this is not a process that should go quickly or easily. This is the Church founded by Jesus Christ announcing to the world that we have PROOF that someone is in Heaven. From all I can find out, the Church used to act accordingly, being careful in the extreme to have a solid case before making such a claim. However, in the past 25 years or so, she no longer seems to care as much about her credibility. We’re just supposed to say, “Oh, OK, Rome says this guy is a Saint, so away we go!”, regardless of what is required to reach that point. Pardon me if I am not impressed. I will continue to harbor doubts about anyone given this honor since at least 1983. If I am able to see for myself someday, I promise I will be respectful to anyone in Heaven I didn’t think would be there, and I hope others will do the same for me. ;))
Rant over.
@ CAG: Brilliant. We’ve all seen it.
The Saint Factory in Rome grinds on. Enough. This is approaching popularity contest level nonsense.
Be it politics or canonization, we have devolved from the recognition of the good, the wise, and the honorable to a popular vote for the latest Prom Queen and King.