What Makes a Saint?

What Makes a Saint?

At the age of three Audrey Santo nearly drowned. Although saved she would spend the next 20 years of her life “kept alive by machines and unable to speak or move”. (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/10/13/bid_to_canonize_girl_draws_mixed_reaction/) Since her death in April 2007, Audrey’s supporters have lobbied Rome to consider her for sainthood. The request has touched off a debate as to what makes a saint.

Generally, in order for a candidate to be canonized or beatified, he/she must have lived a life “marked by the exercise of heroic virtue, and only after this has been proved by common repute for sanctity and by conclusive arguments.” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364b.htm) As explained by Monsignor F. Stephen Pedone in the above-mentioned Boston Globe column, the problem with Audrey’s case is that there are no examples of this heroic virtue: “They might be hard pressed to prove that she had this will to embrace Christian virtues and to live them . . . She probably didn't even know what they were."

Yet, one could argue that ultimately a saint is one who draws others to Christ and His Church. If that’s the case, then Audrey’s supporters believe she is more-than-deserving:

“Over the next 14 years [after her near-drowning], the bed-ridden girl, Audrey, became an object of intense devotion for thousands who came to peer through a window cut into her bedroom and pray. Time and again, they reported seeing miracles in her presence: hosts bled, oil formed in a priest's cup, the sick were healed. In 1998, 10,000 people celebrated Mass in a stadium in Worcester with Audrey, who was brought there by ambulance.”

Audrey’s mother believes her daughter was a victim soul—“someone chosen by God to accept the suffering of others”. Perhaps that is true, but even this assessment is problematic because in Catholic literature victim souls choose to suffer for others, such as Sister Josefa Menendez does in The Way of Divine Love. There is no proof that Audrey viewed her sufferings as a sacrifice for others.

Tough call.

Donald Tremblay

Adaptation and Desensitization – Two Sides of the Same Coin

Mankind’s ability to adapt is one of its greatest gifts. Put people into the most difficult situations and somehow they manage to survive—and in some cases even thrive. Yet, the very characteristic that enables us to endure as a species is also the characteristic most responsible for the disintegration of our societal mores and values.

The problem with adaptation is that too often it leads to desensitization, as is the case with the incessant images of violence and sex that bombard our minds daily. Our minds adapt by hardening against the increasingly disturbing images, creating a shield over our sensitivity to moral outrage. Without this shield people would be unable to satisfy their innumerable daily responsibilities in this hectic world. The shield is a defense mechanism, a survival method—one that is best summarized by the expression, “I have my own problems to worry about.” Hence, over time the same images that would have offended us barely register on our inner moral radar. The state of video games is a prime example, as indicated in a New York Daily News article today:

“The over-the-top Saints Row 2 encourages players to butcher cops with chain saws, smoke drugs, annihilate rival gangsters and run prostitution rings. . . . Players earn money or street credibility in a host of criminal and despicable ways, like mutilating cops and enslaving women.” (http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/arts/2008/10/13/2008-10-13_letting_game_players_kill_cops_and_smoke.html)

Nice, huh?

NYPD union boss Patrick Lynch appropriately argues that “these horrible and violent video games desensitize young people to violence while encouraging depravity, immorality while glorifying criminal behavior." Saints Row 2-designer THQ is clearly trying to out-deprave the granddaddy of all tasteless video games, Grand Theft Auto. GTA is now in its fourth version, and its latest “has sold more than 6 million copies since April.”

There will be no uproar about Saints Row 2. People will argue that it is just a game. And months from now when THQ has earned several million dollars in sales from this trash, we will once again wonder why children are committing violent crimes at ever younger ages and why these same youngsters refer to women as “bitches and hos”.

Don’t blame the children. They are just adapting to their circumstances.

Donald Tremblay

The Day of the Triffids

The most dangerous people in the world are not those who knowingly commit evil, but those who convince themselves that their actions are noble despite evidence to the contrary. I’m amazed at the number of people I’ve encountered over the years who are capable of rationalizing the most ridiculous, the most hypocritical, and even the most illogical actions. Maybe its narcissism. Maybe it’s ignorance. I don’t know. But one thing I do know is that it’s frightening.

Case in point: We live in a world where with each passing year human life is further cheapened. Western society not only refuses to reject abortion, but seeks to spread its availability to developing nations. Assisted-suicide and euthanasia exist in Europe and are making inroads in the United States. Civil wars across Africa have killed millions, and now tens of thousands of Christians have been murdered by Hindus in India.

Yet, what is on the minds of the Swiss: plants rights.

According to the Wall Street Journal (“Switzerland's Green Power Revolution: Ethicists Ponder Plants' Rights”) Swiss scientists who genetically modify plants must now ensure that they are not “trampling on a plant's dignity”. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122359549477921201.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Stop laughing.

Believe it or not the Swiss Parliament created a panel of various “experts” from a collection of disciplines—including philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians—to “establish the meaning of flora's dignity”. Among the examples given by the panel of immoral behavior towards plants is “decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason”.

Would that be a mortal sin or a venial sin?

After all if a young man is going to risk eternal torment for pulling a flower out of the ground to give to the woman he loves, he should at least be warned ahead of time.

Think the Swiss’ nuttiness ends here? Not quite. Here are a few other gems:

“Last month, Switzerland granted new rights to all ‘social animals.’ Prospective dog owners must take a four-hour course on pet care before they can buy a canine companion, while anglers must learn to catch fish humanely. Fish can't be kept in aquariums that are transparent on all sides. The fish need some shelter. Nor can goldfish be flushed down a toilet to an inglorious end; they must first be anesthetized with special chemicals, and then killed.”

Too bad the Swiss don’t have the same regard for the dignity of humans, as witnessed by their sanctioning of abortion and assisted suicide.

Perhaps the pro-life movement in Switzerland should change its approach: instead of arguing that a fetus is a human life, they should argue that it is a form of plant life. They’d receive more sympathy.

Donald Tremblay

Christ is Above All- Including His Own Teachings

Mark Shea, senior content editor for Catholicexchange.com, wrote an interesting commentary for the Oct 5 issue of the National Catholic Register. (http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/16062/) “Denver’s Partisan Theology” is primarily a criticism of the Democratic Party’s pro-abortion platform. However, at the end of the essay while questioning the methods of anti- death penalty crusader Sister Helen Prejean, Shea explains the dangers of taking “a particular aspect of Church teaching and expand[ing] it into the entire faith.” As he correctly points out history is replete with instances of this.
For ex., “Expanding predestination into the Whole Faith got us Calvinism”. Here is a useful definition of Calvinism and predestination as provided by http://www.religioustolerance.org/calvinism.htm :

"Unconditional Election." This is the concept of predestination: that God has divided humanity into two groups. One group is "the elected." It includes all those whom God has chosen to make knowledgeable about himself. The rest will remain ignorant of God, and the Gospel. They are damned and will spend eternity in Hell without any hope of mercy or cessation of the extreme tortures. God made this selection before the universe was created, and thus before any humans existed. The ground or grounds that God uses to select the lucky few is unknown. What is known is that it is not through any good works on the part of the individual. It is not that he extends knowledge to some in order to find out who will accept salvation and who will not.
Another example given by Shea is that of exalting love of the poor: “Expanding the love of the poor into the Whole Faith led some misguided Catholics to embrace communism.” Who can forget the misguided disaster known as liberation theology?

“Impatience and a desire for results has led certain Christians, despairing of every other method, to turn to what they call "marxist analysis. . . . Let us recall the fact that atheism and the denial of the human person, his liberty and rights, are at the core of the Marxist theory. This theory, then, contains errors which directly threaten the truths of the faith regarding the eternal destiny of individual persons. Moreover, to attempt to integrate into theology an analysis whose criterion of interpretation depends on this atheistic conception is to involve oneself in terrible contradictions. What is more, this misunderstanding of the spiritual nature of the person leads to a total subordination of the person to the collectivity, and thus to the denial of the principles of a social and political life which is in keeping with human dignity.”

(Instruction on Certain Aspects of "Theology of Liberation" - Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, August 6, 1984 http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_df84lt.htm)

As Christians we must resist the temptation to elevate Christ’s teachings above Christ Himself. Christ was not Confucius. He was not simply a sage who developed a social philosophy for men to live in harmony. He was, and is, the Son of God:

“For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.” (John 3: 16-17)

And there is not a beatitude or commandment that takes precedence over this.
So by all means try and adhere to all of Christ’s teachings to the best of your ability . . . but remember: it is the Son of Man who gives those teachings their authority, and not the other way around.

The Religious Atheist

Bill Maher’s Religulous received mixed reviews from movie critics around the nation. Some newspapers such as the New York Daily News and the New York Post loved it, while others like Newsday and The Boston Globe ripped it. The New York Daily News gives the film four stars and states, “What he [Maher] does do finally in this funny, refreshing movie is assert how unrestrained religiosity could guarantee the ‘end days’ many of his subjects admit to looking forward to.” (http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2008/09/30/2008-09-30_oh_god_religulous_features_bill_maher_in.html)

Similarly, the New York Post describes the film as a “religious experience” while granting it three stars. (The Post’s favorable critique isn’t surprising, however, considering that the writer of the review believes that “[n]o defender of any religion could withstand five minutes of cross-examination from a junior varsity debater”.) (http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2008/09/30/2008-09-30_oh_god_religulous_features_bill_maher_in.html)

Kudos to Newsday and The Boston Globe for exposing Maher’s hypocrisy. Maher criticizes religious supporters as fanatical; yet he is as rabid in his atheistic views as the very people he denigrates and mocks.

Newsday’s Rafer Guzman labels the film “a nasty, condescending, small-minded film, self-amused and ultimately self-defeating.” He also adds that “[Maher’s] routines are often vulgar: Whenever homosexuality comes up, Maher resorts to sniggering anatomical jokes. After the interviews are wrapped, director Larry Charles (‘Borat’) uses the editing room to have the last laugh. At one point, the film visually compares a well-dressed black pastor to a flashy black pimp.” (http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/partii/ny-etrelig5864082oct01,0,6930563.story )

This vulgarity should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Maher’s previous works. A juvenile sense of humor is his trademark.

The Boston Globe’s Wesley Morris describes the film as follows:
“As an exchange of ideas, this is a hopeless project, since Maher's doubt is as immovable as his interviewees' certainty. As entertainment, it's entirely a matter of whether of you find Maher's superiority complex a laughing matter. He's a committed skeptic, and those who aren't must be stupid.” (http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/10/03/maher_happily_makes_a_mockery_of_religion/)
Maher’s subjects are purposely not theologians or biblical scholars, a point raised by Morris later in his review: “Many of the faithful Maher interviews are underprepared or exposed as naïve, misinformed, or possibly fraudulent.” But let’s give Bill a break; it’s difficult to mock those who can defend themselves.

In the film Maher contends, “I’m only asking questions.” But anyone familiar with his modus operandi is well aware of the disingenuousness of this statement. Ridicule is his motive, as Morris summarizes in the final paragraph of his column:

“Mostly Maher is content to riff, rant, opine, judge, reduce, and preach - zealously, I might add. Early in the film, he meets with a group of American men in their tiny church, and speaks from an elevated pulpit, requiring them to look up at him. One of the men doesn't appreciate Maher's tone, excuses himself, and exits. He knows that Maher is not looking for answers. He's looking for targets.”

Maher’s dirty, little secret is that he is as zealously religious as any Christian fundamentalist. The only difference is that his religion is atheism.

Donald Tremblay