When the Saints Come Slouching In

(source)

The heavily politicized canonizations of the postconciliar era continue unabated. Papa Montini is the latest to receive the dubious honor of being scheduled for elevation to the altars. No doubt the bloggers and twitterers will be aflutter with commentary on the greatness of Paolo Sextus—how he saved the world from the terror of birth control and ushered in an era of liturgical glory.

About a week ago I had a long conversation with an old friend of my wife's who was complaining about some bad habits of Tradistanis, in particular the mindless aphorism that a good Catholic should "Be like the saints." What about St. Simon the Stylite, she wondered, who lived the last few decades of his life upon a pillar? Should we also live on a pillar until our deaths, or should we arbitrarily choose another saint to imitate? The question was provocative, but it made the point that it is rather absurd to advocate the imitation of the saints without being somewhat more specific about the ways in which we are to imitate them.

It used to be that sainthood was a glory bestowed on certain of the faithful departed who had lived a life of extraordinary virtue in some manner worthy of admiration and imitation. They needed to be publicly recognized so that we could learn from their spiritual fruitfulness and also so they could be called upon for intercession with the Most High. God especially loves those who love him, and is more willing to be swayed by their requests.

Christians could learn what makes a good pope from Gregory the Great, what makes a good penitent from Augustine, what makes a good monk from Benedict. Martyrs teach a simple though difficult lesson, but the lessons we are supposed to abstract from most of the more recently elevated are ambiguous. What shall we learn from Teresa of Calcutta: that we may permit pagans to die unbaptized? Shall we learn from Mary Faustina Kowalska how to feminize Our Lord? Can Josemaria Escriva teach us how to terrorize our subordinates? Was John Paul's particular virtue popularity? When the virtues desired for imitation are not specified, the faithful are left to assume that those canonized are perfect through and through without any shade of turning, and will perform extraordinary feats of mental gymnastics to maintain this pious fiction.

Adding P. Paul to the very kalendar he created is fitting, if not edifying. We do not yet know how Pontifrancis intends to laud his progressive predecessor. One wishes we had reason to hope for the best, but one also knows better.

Mother Teresa: Just Right?

In his most recent broadside against all the groups that annoy him the most, the clearly radically unbalanced convert Dwight Longenecker has mean words for anyone who makes the slightest criticism against the canonization of Mother Teresa:

Rather than undermine her reputation, the attacks on Mother Teresa are a good indicator of her authenticity. When a person is attacked from only one side of the ideological divide one suspects that they are on the other side. However, whenever a person is attacked from both liberals and conservatives they must be getting it just about right.

Heaven forbid we use an actual logical syllogism or historical examples to support our assertions. Although, I cannot help but wonder if this is not some corruption of Chesterton's ruminations in Orthodoxy, where he considers the fact that various people have conflicting complaints about the Faith:

Suppose we heard an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we were puzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall and some too short; some objected to his fatness, some lamented his leanness; some thought him too dark, and some too fair. One explanation (as has been already admitted) would be that he might be an odd shape. But there is another explanation. He might be the right shape. Outrageously tall men might feel him to be short. Very short men might feel him to be tall. Old bucks who are growing stout might consider him insufficiently filled out; old beaux who were growing thin might feel that he expanded beyond the narrow lines of elegance. Perhaps Swedes (who have pale hair like tow) called him a dark man, while negroes considered him distinctly blonde. Perhaps (in short) this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at least the normal thing, the centre. Perhaps, after all, it is Christianity that is sane and all its critics that are mad—in various ways. (ch. vi)

But of course the main difference between Chesterton and Fr. Slubgrip is that the former actually works out the logic of his speculation, and also admits its limitations. You have to assume that all of the sides criticizing the target are wrong beforehand, and that said criticism is merely an outworking of their irrational or evil prejudices. It ignores any potentially reasonable arguments via a preemptive ad hominem attack.

Also recently, Longenecker has declared both the blog and the novel to be dying forms of publication. No word yet on whether he intends to jump ship on either one.

Teresa of Calcutta

(Wikimedia Commons)

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."