How serious are Catholic declarations of sainthood?

[polonius]

Current candidates for declaration of Catholic sainthood:

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 16, 2005

“Pope Benedict XVI has temporarily blocked the beatification of a French priest and appointed a commission to investigate the priest's anti-Semitic writings, drawing praise from Jewish leaders who called it a sign of the new pope's sensitivity to other religions.

“Last December, Pope John Paul II announced plans to beatify Leon Dehon on April 24. The ceremony would have been a major step toward sainthood for Dehon, who lived from 1843 to 1925 and founded the Priests of the Sacred Heart, a religious order that today has nearly 2,400 members around the world.

“In February, however, a French historian drew attention to seven controversial texts by Dehon. According to extracts published in the French Catholic newspaper La Croix, Dehon wrote that Jews were "thirsty for Gold" and that "lust for money is a racial instinct in them"; he called the Talmud "a manual for the bandit, the corrupter, the social destroyer"; and he recommended several measures later adopted by the Nazis, including that Jews wear special markings, live in ghettos and be excluded from land ownership, judgeships and teaching positions.�

Associated Press article (2018)

“WARSAW, Poland — Pope Francis’ decision to move the World War II-era head of Poland’s Catholic Church a step closer to possible sainthood has hit a stumbling block, after two leading Jewish organizations and even Polish Catholic publications called him out for anti-Semitic views.

“It’s not clear if the protests will derail the sainthood cause of Cardinal August Hlond, but in the past the Vatican has taken such protests seriously and at the very least put the cases up for closer review.

“In May, Francis approved a decree recognizing Hlond’s “heroic virtues.� Now the Vatican must confirm a miracle attributed to Hlond’s intercession for him to be beatified, and a second one for him to be made a saint.

“In its protest, the American Jewish Committee pointed to a passage in a 1936 pastoral letter by Hlond, who was Poland’s primate then, that showed his attitude toward Jews and echoed the general line of the Catholic Church of the time.

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Nazi-hunting body, said making Hlond a saint would “further embolden� Poland’s right-wing government in its “headlong efforts to selectively rewrite Polish activities from that tragic era.�

“The disputed passage in Hlond’s letter reads: “It is a fact that the Jews are fighting against the Catholic Church, persisting in free thinking, and are the vanguard of godlessness, Bolshevism and subversion.�

Another more recent proposed canonization.
“Pope Francis just announced the beatification of Enrique Angelelli (“Satanelli�).
There were many radical bishops in the wild years following the Second Vatican Council. But Enrique Angelelli, bishop of La Rioja, Argentina, was probably the most radical. He was a Communist in all but name and stridently supported the terrorist organization “Montoneros�, the leftist terrorist branch of the Peronist movement.
“The La Rioja bishop had an active and proved link with the terrorist organization Montoneros.�

It can be undoubtedly said that the horrid military dictatorship that governed Argentina from 1976 until the Falklands War was brought about as a brutal overreaction to the terrorist attacks coordinated by Montoneros in favor of a Socialist-Peronist revolution.

“Political and radical leftist bishop:
Angelelli was so leftist, so radically leftist and so political, that the shocked practicing faithful of his own diocese used to call him in life “Satanelli�. He died in a car accident in 1976. Yet Francis has decided to beatify Satanelli as a “martyr�! (It is all very ironic because, even though it is claimed, now, that Fr. Bergoglio opposed the dictatorship, at the time he was considered an ally of the military, and even close to the most brutal of the Junta’s members, Admiral Emilio Massera.)
“Pope Francis has decided to beatify Satanelli as a “martyr�. Even if, hypothetically, it had been a murder, Angelelli would not be a martyr for defending the faith.�


Beatification problems
“It is clear that something is substantially wrong with the current beatifications and canonizations. With these the Church proclaims the Christian exemplariness of the life of a person and authorizes his being the object of cult. A large number of these recently proclaimed “saintly� individuals led disedifying lives. We need to start questioning the discrepancy between the message we are conveying to the Church’s faithful and the reality.�

[marco]

I agree that what you have said is true. But, honoring those in a way that's not supported by evidence and incongruent with the bible is a bridge too far.
We are not unworthy, but claiming Saint Hood is beyond our authority.

I agree that idolatry is forbidden. However, in human circles we have war heroes and heroine nurses and eminent doctors and laureate poets and Nobel Peace Prize winners and … So if somebody, somewhere has led what is seen to be a life of sacrifice, helping others and setting a shining example, would it not be rather unfair if that "goodness" were not honoured just as courage or cleverness or writing ability?

Compared to a deity nobody is worth a badge for courage; nobody writes well and there are no peace makers. However, here on our leprous, cancerous, famine- infested Earth, it is good to single some out and under their names write: Try to be like them! Nobody is removing God from his heavenly place; we are just congratulating some humans for doing more than their best. I'm sure God would approve of praise for good works. We should not get so tied down with small print that we refrain from honouring goodness when we see it. That would be bad. Honour is not worship, Brian. Go well.

[polonius]

“Last December, Pope John Paul II announced plans to beatify Leon Dehon on April 24. The ceremony would have been a major step toward sainthood for Dehon, who lived from 1843 to 1925 and founded the Priests of the Sacred Heart, a religious order that today has nearly 2,400 members around the world.

“In February, however, a French historian drew attention to seven controversial texts by Dehon. According to extracts published in the French Catholic newspaper La Croix, Dehon wrote that Jews were "thirsty for Gold" and that "lust for money is a racial instinct in them"; he called the Talmud "a manual for the bandit, the corrupter, the social destroyer"; and he recommended several measures later adopted by the Nazis, including that Jews wear special markings, live in ghettos and be excluded from land ownership, judgeships and teaching positions.�

Tam posted:

If you are just asking about the practice of declaring someone a saint in general... well, just the idea of that seems to miss the point that saints are simply those who are in Christ, and who have been anointed with holy spirit (making them Christians aka anointed ones).

RESPONSE:
Are you claiming that an unrepentant anti-Semite can be validly declared a saint by the Pope?

[tam]

Peace to you Polonius,

[Replying to post 12 by polonius]

There is no such thing as declaring someone to be a 'saint'. All Christians are saints (not all who claim to be Christian truly are Christian though).

Christ is the One who chooses (by anointing a person with holy spirit), not the Pope.


Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[polonius]

Peace to you Polonius,

[Replying to post 12 by polonius]

There is no such thing as declaring someone to be a 'saint'. All Christians are saints (not all who claim to be Christian truly are Christian though).

Christ is the One who chooses (by anointing a person with holy spirit), not the Pope.


Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

RESPONSE: Let's not tell the Pope that.

From Wikipedia: "In the Roman Catholic Church, both Latin and constituent Eastern churches, the act of canonization is reserved to the Apostolic See and occurs at the conclusion of a long process requiring extensive proof that the candidate for canonization lived and died in such an exemplary and holy way that they are worthy to be recognized as a saint. The Church's official recognition of sanctity implies that the person is now in Heaven and that they may be publicly invoked and mentioned officially in the liturgy of the Church, including in the Litany of the Saints.