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It hasn't taken long for the Catholic ephemerists of the internet to sing the praises of the newly-canonized Mother Teresa. Fr. Zuhl, for instance, has invoked the newly minted saint for the purpose of converting sinners:
In particular I ask St. Teresa of Calcutta to intercede with God for the conversion, or the failure, of Fishwrap. I ask St. Teresa to intercede with God for the conversion, or the failure, of the dems’ presidential candidate. I ask St. Teresa to intercede with God for the conversion, or the utter failure, of Islamic terrorists. (source)I, for one, can't imagine a worse reason to ask for St. T of C's intercession than the hope of conversion. She had no use for such nonsense, as she said repeatedly:
We never try to convert those who receive [our aid] to Christianity but in our work we bear witness to the love of God's presence and if Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, or agnostics become for this better men -- simply better -- we will be satisfied.And,
Of course I convert. I convert you to be a better Hindu or a better Muslim or a better Protestant. Once you’ve found God, it’s up to you to decide how to worship him.It is endlessly depressing to list the reasons why modern canonizations are increasingly occasions of scandal. For all of the very real and tangible good that Mother Teresa and her order has done in impoverished countries, her thoughtless comments were doubtless enough to convince many non-Catholic admirers that they needn't convert to her religion. They were even a serious consideration in my own early temptations towards apostasy.
On the other hand, perhaps God will indeed assign her the task of converting the hearts of infidels as a way of balancing out her earthly missteps. I cannot help but think of her as inhabiting the sphere of the moon in Dante's Paradiso, where inconstant religious women spent their eternity.
"And we are to be found within a sphere
this low, because we have neglected vows,
so that in some respect we were deficient."
http://mahoundsparadise.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteEven if it is true that Mother Teresa encouraged her nuns to perform such surreptitious baptisms, I have to wonder if they could possibly be valid. Adults with the use of reason have to rationally consent to baptism. According to canon 865:
Delete"An adult in danger of death can be baptized if, having some knowledge of the principal truths of the faith, the person has manifested in any way at all the intention to receive baptism and promises to observe the commandments of the Christian religion."
But babies though...
DeleteI think such emergency baptisms are done with the hope that God has provided the recipient with a way to consent (one we perhaps don't know about). I, myself, participated in one such baptism for a a dying man over 90 who had suffered too many strokes to speak or respond much to anything.
DeleteIt basically amounts to, "God, if this man/woman is willing to join You, please accept this baptism or provide a means to deliver his/her soul to paradise."
I refuse to believe that God would turn his back on such a request just because the recipient is physically indisposed at that moment.
She was imprudent, yes, but she isn’t entirely wrong in her second comment, and in fact becoming better in the schismatic or pagan worship might paradoxically lead someone to the faith. There also is a place for radically living the Gospel in a visible, practical way which doesn’t diminish the intellect. There is also a place for testifying to the Gospel in an intellectual way, because to truly do so is a work of charity, and the intellectual life is not opposed to the Gospel, far from it in fact.
ReplyDeleteI think it is of note that the family in which one of the miracles occurred converted to Catholicism despite doubt among doctors (all Hindu nationalists apparently) about the miraculous nature of the cure.
A few decades or centuries would be OK before canonizations of any sort.
"She was imprudent, yes, but she isn’t entirely wrong in her second comment, and in fact becoming better in the schismatic or pagan worship might paradoxically lead someone to the faith.".
DeleteRomans 1 comes to mind...
I think a better way of wording that may be CS Lewis' opinion that, going forward, it might be good to make men into good and moral pagans as a stepping-stone to becoming a Christian, a good Christian.
DeleteAfter all, a great many ancient pagans would be horrified at what the "civilized" neo-pagan man has built.
I don't know whether I find this kind of gradualistic approach to morality and conversion compelling. If you find someone lost in a sinful life, do you recommend him to leave it in stages or all at once? To recommend stages would seem to be recommending he continue to sin (albeit in lesser ways), and to deny the possibility of radical change.
DeleteWould you tell a man living in adultery to gradually stop cheating on his wife? Would you tell a man worshiping a pagan god to start including Christ in his sacrifices, and wean him gradually into monotheism? Would you tell a witch to gradually stop casting spells and welcoming devils into her life?
I know that, practically speaking, people living in these various states of sin often do convert by gradations, but if the call to conversion is not absolute, they may never finally convert at all.
True. Also, that seems to depend on God having revealed himself in the flesh as the holy and undivided Trinity. Prior to the Incarnation, pagans did convert gradually.
DeleteOh, people convert gradually all the time, even now. A total and immediate conversion, however, is the demand of the moral law. I can't think of any Old Testament examples of God or his ministers being satisfied with half-conversions.
DeleteI think we should expect more of this in the future. I am pretty sure Francis will be canonized by the next Pope and he has said many problematic things.
ReplyDeleteI think that traditionalists need to have a "road to Damascus" moment because they've seem to have forgotten that it's not their own understanding of faith that's the pillar of truth but the Church. Even Luther believed his own understanding of scriptures was the pillar of truth rather than the Church. Many heretics have left the Church to start their own sects, all the while convinced that they were the remnant of true Christians. How is this any different? Even they tried to "prove" their case by quoting Church Fathers like Augustine, scripture, Church documents and traditions. But who is the authentic interpreter of the faith? The magisterium. Now we can judge the popes, the saints, the clergy, basically anyone who disagrees with us because we know better, eh?
ReplyDeleteI do not think J or anyone else here is arguing to leave the Church. Mother Teresa is in heaven because the Church says she is however she held unto some incorrect ideas. Her views on not converting others is simply wrong and a basic understanding of Church doctrine will tell you that.
DeleteSaints can make mistakes and those faults can cause scandal so we have to be vigilant in noting these issues.
Logos Man, just where do the traditionalists have their own understanding of faith than the Church's? They may have some weird ideas, even excesses in certain directions, but I've yet to see this different understanding of faith. And the Magisterium hasn't been invoked all this time, notwithstanding some documents of John Paul II.
DeleteMr. Logos, are you arguing that Mother Teresa's statements about not wishing to convert infidels are not problematic? I welcome you to explain your position.
Delete@On The Road To Damascus
DeleteWell get me a horse and call me Saul of Tarsus but isn't the terminology in the upper comment so providential :D
Marko,
DeleteHah! I actually responded to Logos since I thought he was referring to my original post in his response.
Only saw that now xD
DeleteBack in the '90's, Mother Teresa was quoted in the U.S. press to the effect that she was not against women's ordination. As it turned out (I can't remember exactly how I discovered it), she was simply being used by the western press to push an agenda (surprise!). At any rate, I would personally be skeptical of quotes like these unless they can be shown to be her actual words (more or less). Like John Paul II, she was quoted--at times apocryphally--by all sorts of people to push a cause, sometimes accurately, sometimes not.
ReplyDeleteWell, I can find these and similar quotes by searching through books on Amazon and Google Books (e.g., Life in the Spirit and A Simple Path). I don't know of anyone who has seriously questioned their veracity, although I would be open to a critical analysis.
DeleteMother Teresa was an advocate for many good causes, including some (minor) liturgical reform, and the abolition of abortion. And of course her corporal care for the poor is nearly unmatched in our age.
J., I don't doubt for a minute that Mother Teresa expressed herself according to the "spirit of the age," and I should have added that I'm cautious about assuming that she was more traditional than she really was (pace Fr. Rutler). I wouldn't be surprised to hear, in fact, that if she were asked point-blank whether the Catholic Faith is the only true faith, she would agree, but only reluctantly when put in such stark terms. It's probably a result of "Gaudium et Spes" and all the other corruption of language in the Church. Just my opinion, though.
DeleteI know this is from the "SSPX Resistance," but it quotes from a reliable source I believe: http://tradcatknight.blogspot.com/2014/12/is-mother-teresa-of-calcutta-saint.html
ReplyDeleteIf we agree that Canonisations are infallible -we do all agree about that, right? - then I don't see why this or other modern Canonisations is a scandal.
ReplyDeleteI can understand why this or that recent Saint may or may not be your cup of meat, but a Canonization is infallible and there will be plenty of other faithful who will find her the cat's pajamas.
Matt 25; 35-46 seems an apt standard by which to judge Mother.
I have yet to see any dogma that makes canonizations infallible (although I would be happy to be corrected).
Delete"St Constantine Equal to the Apostles" and "Sts. Ariald and Herlembald" come to mind.
And let me also state the St. Teresa of Calcutta was probably a holier person than I can ever hope to be.
DeleteWell the reasoning behind the infallibility of canonizations, apart from the formula used, is that Church proposes that a certain person is in heaven, is worthy of emulation and of veneration, and the Church must do so infallibly because otherwise,
Deleteher proposals of such nature would be uncertain and we would never know if the person is really in heaven, if the person is worthy of emulation, and that would mean that the Church is possibly promoting a false cult by proposing for veneration someone who is not venerable.
The Church basically imposes the cult on everyone and that is something akin to teaching everyone (i.e. proclaiming a dogma). That's another bit of reasoning.
Now some say the process is broken because there is no "devil's advocate" anymore and because there are no post mortem miracles so the canonization is fallible. I don't buy that. There were no processes in the antiquity. Others who don't buy that excuse and therefore believe that the Church must be infallible in canonizations, but see that she supposedly messed up with JP2 and Theresa, say, quite logically, that this couldn't have come from the true Church of Christ. And they go off and become a sedevacantist or an orthodox or whatnot.
Maybe some solution needs to be find to the apparent contradiction of fallibility of canonization and the formula along with the imposition of the cult.
needs to be found*
DeleteWhat,then, of "St." Herlembald who was "canonized" by a pope for entirely political reasons. Or the Emperor Constantine who committed political murder as a matter of course?
DeleteI'm not entirely sure the retroactive Scholastic reasoning works. Perhaps the procedure that was created gave a measure of protection (or even infallibility) but what of saints and "saints" both before and after?
Regardless, the people that are being canonized now are nowhere near as scandalous as the aforementioned Herlembald. Many even have a holiness to them.
That's why i said: "Maybe some solution needs to be find to the apparent contradiction of fallibility of canonization and the formula along with the [universal] imposition of the cult.".
DeleteWe have a formula which is akin to an infallible pronouncement and, to add insult to injury we have an imposition of cult upon universal Church.
On the other side there are those murky saints of past and present.
Many theologians (manualists) argued that canonizations are indeed infallible and are dogmatic facts.
But, seeing who get's canonized nowadays, one begins to doubt...
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/are-canonizations-based-on-papal-infallibility
ReplyDeleteMany find the ditching of the Devil's Advocate troubling but given the potential positive economic repercussions of these decisions (How many Christians have visited tiny Bruges (it really is quaint an picturesque) to visit Basile van het Heilig Bloed, where the putative the vial of Christ's Blood was reserved?) there prolly were charges in the past that the Devil's Advocate was swayed by the intervention of a powerful Bishop so he would only very gently question the character of a particular Saint that powerful Bishop desired be Canonised because he possessed so many first class relics in his Duomo.