Saints in the Catholic Religion. by:Stephanie Hamann

Stephanie Hamann

English Comp 289

Ethan Philbrick

May 27, 2011

Religion was a very large part of my life growing up. I attended church every Sunday and was sent to a parochial grade school. I never questioned religion when I was young. It all seemed so black and white. Of course God created the world in 7 days and of course a man named Jesus died for our sins. Every school day would begin with prayer, we prayed before lunch, and every day concluded with prayer. Sometimes, if you ended up with specific bus drivers, we would pray on the bus ride home. Most of the prayers we said were not original. They were rehearsed prayers that had been around for centuries such as the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles Creed. Although I am not a Catholic, I have been exposed to the community for a large portion of my life.

One of the main differences between Catholics and Protestants is the way each religion presents saints. The Protestants acknowledge their existence and applaud their contributions to the bible, but they save all of the praise for God and Jesus. On the other hand, the Catholics use saints more actively throughout religion and religious education. I can recall the courtyard of my grade school being packed with stone statues of the mother Mary, St. Peter, St. Francis of Assisi and many more. On occasion the teachers would bring us to this courtyard to pray to the statues. I can’t tell you how many projects I’ve done about saints. I even remember having trading cards with saints on them. When I went back to St. Columban church for research I noticed the different saint inscribed on windows and walls.

The Catholics actually receive quite a bit of criticism from other religions. This started in the 16^th century with the protestant movement. The first two of the Ten Commandments instruct us not to worship anything but God himself and not to create any false idols. Some protestant religions believe that the Catholics are violating these commandments. When confronted about this issue, the Catholics explain that “they do not pray to the saints, but with them.” This is known as the communion of saints by those in the catholic religion. The communion of saints is “the spiritual solidarity which bonds together the faithful on Earth, the souls in purgatory, and the saints in Heaven…”

Listen below to hear a list of some of the saints.

What is a saint? One might ask. According to the Webster’s dictionary, a saint refers to a person who has been formally canonized by the Catholic Church, and is therefore believed to be in Heaven. Second question, what does it mean to be canonized? Let me just start off by saying, if you were planning on becoming a saint as your one claim to fame, you might want to reconsider. The first step in the process is fulfilled by the bishop of the area in which the candidate died. The bishop simply has to give permission to launch an investigation. Unless waived by the pope himself, this investigation can begin no sooner than 5 years after the candidate dies. It is not uncommon for the pope to waive this waiting period. Pope John Paul II did this for Mother Teresa and Pope Benedict the XVI did the same for John Paul II when he died. This investigation includes extensive search of the candidate’s writings and sermons, and a biography is written based on this information in the mean time. Next, all of this information is presented to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. Once the proper approval has gone through, the candidate is then exhumed and examined.

Once all of the investigating has been concluded, the candidate’s information is presented to the pope. At this point the candidate begins to be referred to as “Servant of God”. The pope then determines whether or not the Servant of God expresses “heroic virtue.” This means the servant has provided a heroic display of faith and charity throughout his or her lifetime. The proclamation by the pope brings the canonization to the third step. Once again, the name is switched from Servant of God to “Venerable.” One thing you must know about the process of canonization is it requires the Venerable to perform at least two miracles after death. In order to provoke a miracle, people of faith often create prayer cards to encourage others to pray for a miracle on the behalf of the Venerable. At this point in the process, because the canonization has yet to be finalized, the venerable may not have any churches named after him or her and does not have a feast day.

There is still one more step before the venerable is declared a saint. First he or she must be determined as “Blessed”. There are two criteria that constitute a venerable as “Blessed” the person is either a martyr or a confessor. A martyr is someone who died for their faith and a confessor is someone who lived a life of faith and has performed a miracle. After all of this investigation into the Blessed person’s life and compositions, and after two miracles have occurred after death, the canonization is finally complete and the person is declared a Saint.

I would have never understood all of the literacy behind canonization if I hadn’t done a bit of online research and talked to Father Larry, the priest at St. Columban. Father Larry explained all of the different steps and gave examples of miracles performed by different saints. Most of these miracles involve a person being cured of a chronic illness. He also told me that the Catholics believe that although the saints have died, they are very much alive. The Catholics believe that the saints can see and hear everything. For example if you lost something you could pray to St. Anthony to help you find it because he is the patron saint of lost items.

Before this project I didn’t know much about what a saint was and how one is canonized as a saint and I went to Catholic school for half of my life. Even when I was sitting in the church listening to Father Larry preach nothing he said was making any sense to me. I decided to interview my brother and my father to see what their conceptions of saints were. My younger brother is currently an eighth grader at St. Columban and has a religion class every day. He explained to me that every person who enters the gates of heaven in considered a saint. However, only canonized saints can have churches named after them. He told me the story of St. Lucy, the patron saint of those who are blind. St. Lucy refused to marry her betrothed husband because she wanted to save her virginity. Her husband to be became so angry at this that he sent the guard to kill her. The guards tried to burn her but she could not be harmed, so they gouged her eye out with a fork. St. Lucy grabbed up her eyes and handed them to the man she was once supposed to marry and said “now let me live to God.” My brother told me that he doesn’t believe that this story happened exactly the way it was written. He thinks that Catholics respect the saints for the message behind the story.

See top of page for picture of St. Lucy

The interview with my father went quite differently. He was raised in a very catholic family with his five sister all named Mary and his three brothers James, Paul, and Edward. Not only were all of his siblings named after the bible, but they all attended the same catholic school throughout their school years. My father hasn’t been a regular at a Catholic church in over 30 years, but he could still explain the canonization process to me perfectly. He named of multiple saints and the stories behind them. He then explained to me that he really doesn’t believe any of the specifics of religion anymore. He thinks religion is essential because it gives people a reason to be good especially for children.

This is pretty much the same boat I am in at this point. I like to consider myself a mildly religious person. But I found myself questioning Father Larry throughout the entire mass I attended for my research. I hadn’t been in that church for six years but everything was the same. We sung the same hymns, read the same books of the Bible, the soloist and the pianist were even the same. Other religions seem to be evolving as the rest of the world does but the Catholic religion remains the same and always will.