Sunday, July 07, 2013
"Saints aren't perfect"
This week's news about the impending canonization of Bl. John Paul II in conjunction with Bl. John XXIII has been met with rejoicing and concern. Many Catholics have been understandably elated with the imminent raising of two new papal saints to the altars, while others have voiced concern about the "fast tracking" process that has made this possible as well as the fact that the many scandalous events of John Paul II's pontificate have never been satisfactorily answered to or explained.
I do not intend to spend a lot of time going over the reasons why I personally believe the canonization of John Paul II is imprudent at this time, but it is necessary to mention them in passing to put some context to what I will say here. The Assisi interfaith meetings were scandalous and confusing to the faithful; I don't care how you try to explain it away, they simply were. The kissing of the Koran and referring to it as the word of God, praying with animists in Togo, allowing pagan Aztec priestsesses to bless him, and all such activities were equally scandalous and unprecedented in papal history. What about asking St. John the Baptist to protect Islam? The list could go on. I am willing to grant that maybe John Paul II was not personally responsible for all of these things; I am not suggesting the degree of personal culpability attributable to the late pontiff. But, they happened on his watch and so they are laid at his doorstep. For these reasons and others, I do not believe it is a good idea to canonize this man.
Here's where people chime in and say, "C'mon! Saints aren't perfect! Sure, the man had flaws. Every saint has flaws. You are being too critical."
Saints aren't perfect. I agree. Saints are not perfect. But we are falling prey to a subtle bait and switch if we accept the rationale that "saints aren't perfect" therefore it is appropriate to canonize someone with so much questionable baggage. Let's dissect this.
No person is perfect. No saint is perfect. And we don't want to be hyper-critical. All saints have very human flaws due to human weakness. St. Jerome was notoriously cranky. St. Augustine, during his latter years, was perhaps unduly pessimistic and dour in his prospects about the human race in general. St. Francis of Assisi gave away his father's fabrics to the poor without permission, which would have technically been a form of theft. St. Dominic, though a mendicant, apparently could be nit-picky about wanting his habit kept clean (at least according to the testimony of colleagues at his canonization hearings); St. Teresa of Avila could be slightly strong-armed when asking potential donors to part with their wealth; if we are to believe the stories, St. Nicholas himself once lost his temper and slapper Arius in the face. Sure, saints have flaws. They are humans and they are subject to human weakness.
But here is the distinction: It is one thing to say a saint has flaws; it is another thing to say he did something fundamentally harmful to the faith or contradictory to the nature of his office. We see St. Francis, with the zeal of a new convert, going beyond the boundaries of prudence and giving away his father's silks without permission. We can understand this. We sympathize. We, too, know the experience of being too overzealous about something and inadvertently hurting someone else because of it. This is not a real strike against Francis' sanctity. It just demonstrates his human side.
But suppose Francis, wanting to give to the poor, had gone out and robbed and beaten up someone in order to steal money that he would in turn give to poor, Would we be so likely to sympathize with him then? Would we understand that? And what if he did this, not in the zeal of a new convert, but very deliberately in his eighth year of religious life and then again sixteen years later? And what if these were not isolated incidents, but were exemplary of Francis' general approach towards giving to the poor?
In that case, it would be very hard to sympathize with him, because we would be dealing not with an understandable weakness of character due to zeal that could happen to any son of Adam, but a series of very deliberate actions that are calculated, reasoned out, and executed with precise intentionality. In the former examples, we have instances of saints demonstrating imperfections despite their will to "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect"; in the latter hypothetical example, we have a person utilizing their will to engage in activity that is objectively hurtful to others. We can understand and sympathize with the former; we are confused and scandalized by the latter and feel no sympathy for it. Perhaps if we still had a Promotor Fidei, it would be easier to sort out or categorize these sorts of things.
To what category, then, do the actions of the late John Paul II fall? What human weakness caused him to "accidentally" invite the leaders from all the pagan religions to Rome to encourage them to pray to their false gods and not preach the Gospel to them the entire time they were present? That's not the sort of thing one just "falls" into. One does not simply go to the trouble of scheduling a papal visit to Togo where one engages in prayer in common with animists just due to common "human weakness." These are not things that just happen to anybody. These are deliberate actions that John Paul II intentionally chose to do or intentionally allowed to happen- and those of us who choose to be intellectually honest understand that they were confusing and scandalous to the faithful, in addition to sending the wrong message to the pagans, who were encouraged in the worship of their false gods. And, even if John Paul II did somehow "fall" into the Assisi meetings in 1986, even if these were a "slip-up", it is hard to see why he went ahead and did them again in 2002. Clearly they were intentionally set up to go down exactly as they did. So this is not really a matter of saying, "Eh, he's not perfect." This is matter of deliberate actions done that were confusing or potentially harmful to the faithful, to say nothing about their harm on the participants, who were falsely led into believing it is acceptable to worship their false gods.
We must remember, when we canonize a person who holds an office, we are also approving the manner in which he administered that office. One of the biggest misunderstandings modern Catholics have about canonization is that it is simply a declaration that someone is in heaven. I'm so sick of hearing that! "What's the big deal? All it means is that he's in heaven." If that were all it was, then we could canonize a death-row murderer who maintained his impenitence until a moment before death when he suddenly decides to accept baptism one minute prior to execution. After all, he's in heaven! Clearly this is too simplistic.
Whenever we canonize someone, we are not just affirming they are in heaven, but we are affirming that they have done deeds that are worthy of emulation. Furthermore, tf this person holds an office, like a bishop, priest, pope, or king, then we are also affirming that what they did in that office is worthy of emulation - that they were not just a holy man or woman, but an ideal abbot, abbess, king, queen or whatever. Has it ever been otherwise? Do you know of any saint-kings who were personally holy but terrible kings? How about sainted bishops who were personally holy but made awful bishops? How about sainted popes who were personally holy but the Church went down the toilet under their administration? When a saint really does look like they will not be able to deal with their office, they resign it, like St. Celestine, or St. Cuthbert, who resigned his bishopric for a life of seclusion. What they do not do is stick around for two decades, mismanage the affairs of their communities, confuse and scandalize everybody and then get proclaimed a saint anyway while everyone shrugs off their very obvious flaws.
To canonize an office holder is to canonize the manner in which they held the office. St. Gregory the Great is a saint not just because he was personally holy but because he was a model pope, St. Charles Borromeo because he was a model bishop, St. Francis because he was a model mendicant, St. Thomas because he was a model teacher and theologian. Nothing is more contrary to the tradition of the Church and the meaning implicit in canonizations than to draw a distinction between someone's personal holiness and the manner in which they fulfilled their vocation. The two are united. In fact, one's personal holiness is directly contingent upon how one fulfills one's vocation. One cannot become a sainted bishop while simultaneously having failed in the most fundamental aspects of an episcopal vocation. It's so simple, we could make a meme out of it:
I have been giving extreme examples, and I am certainly not saying John Paul II was a failure as a pope. There are many things I did that I think were wonderful. I have no qualms, however, about saying that John Paul II was not an ideal pope, much less is he worthy he being called "the Great." The reasons for me saying this are those common to most traditionalists, and I will not argue each point here. But the important thing is to realize that to canonize John Paul II is to canonize his scandals. The faithful will have no way to distinguish between the praiseworthy and the scandalous in his pontificate, especially since those pushing the cause of John Paul II have never offered an official explanation for these scandals (I even tried to write them and ask for one; see here). The faithful will see St. John Paul the Great praying with pagans at Assisi and think this is Catholic missiology; they will see him kissing the Koran and think this is how we ought to interact with Islam. And who will tell them any differently, eh? If nobody bothered to explain it while John Paul II was on the throne, they sure won't bother to now that he's being raised to the altars.
There is much more we could say. I will probably do another post in the near future about this issue of "fast-tracking" the two late pontiffs to get them canonized.
I do not intend to spend a lot of time going over the reasons why I personally believe the canonization of John Paul II is imprudent at this time, but it is necessary to mention them in passing to put some context to what I will say here. The Assisi interfaith meetings were scandalous and confusing to the faithful; I don't care how you try to explain it away, they simply were. The kissing of the Koran and referring to it as the word of God, praying with animists in Togo, allowing pagan Aztec priestsesses to bless him, and all such activities were equally scandalous and unprecedented in papal history. What about asking St. John the Baptist to protect Islam? The list could go on. I am willing to grant that maybe John Paul II was not personally responsible for all of these things; I am not suggesting the degree of personal culpability attributable to the late pontiff. But, they happened on his watch and so they are laid at his doorstep. For these reasons and others, I do not believe it is a good idea to canonize this man.
Here's where people chime in and say, "C'mon! Saints aren't perfect! Sure, the man had flaws. Every saint has flaws. You are being too critical."
Saints aren't perfect. I agree. Saints are not perfect. But we are falling prey to a subtle bait and switch if we accept the rationale that "saints aren't perfect" therefore it is appropriate to canonize someone with so much questionable baggage. Let's dissect this.
No person is perfect. No saint is perfect. And we don't want to be hyper-critical. All saints have very human flaws due to human weakness. St. Jerome was notoriously cranky. St. Augustine, during his latter years, was perhaps unduly pessimistic and dour in his prospects about the human race in general. St. Francis of Assisi gave away his father's fabrics to the poor without permission, which would have technically been a form of theft. St. Dominic, though a mendicant, apparently could be nit-picky about wanting his habit kept clean (at least according to the testimony of colleagues at his canonization hearings); St. Teresa of Avila could be slightly strong-armed when asking potential donors to part with their wealth; if we are to believe the stories, St. Nicholas himself once lost his temper and slapper Arius in the face. Sure, saints have flaws. They are humans and they are subject to human weakness.
But here is the distinction: It is one thing to say a saint has flaws; it is another thing to say he did something fundamentally harmful to the faith or contradictory to the nature of his office. We see St. Francis, with the zeal of a new convert, going beyond the boundaries of prudence and giving away his father's silks without permission. We can understand this. We sympathize. We, too, know the experience of being too overzealous about something and inadvertently hurting someone else because of it. This is not a real strike against Francis' sanctity. It just demonstrates his human side.
But suppose Francis, wanting to give to the poor, had gone out and robbed and beaten up someone in order to steal money that he would in turn give to poor, Would we be so likely to sympathize with him then? Would we understand that? And what if he did this, not in the zeal of a new convert, but very deliberately in his eighth year of religious life and then again sixteen years later? And what if these were not isolated incidents, but were exemplary of Francis' general approach towards giving to the poor?
In that case, it would be very hard to sympathize with him, because we would be dealing not with an understandable weakness of character due to zeal that could happen to any son of Adam, but a series of very deliberate actions that are calculated, reasoned out, and executed with precise intentionality. In the former examples, we have instances of saints demonstrating imperfections despite their will to "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect"; in the latter hypothetical example, we have a person utilizing their will to engage in activity that is objectively hurtful to others. We can understand and sympathize with the former; we are confused and scandalized by the latter and feel no sympathy for it. Perhaps if we still had a Promotor Fidei, it would be easier to sort out or categorize these sorts of things.
To what category, then, do the actions of the late John Paul II fall? What human weakness caused him to "accidentally" invite the leaders from all the pagan religions to Rome to encourage them to pray to their false gods and not preach the Gospel to them the entire time they were present? That's not the sort of thing one just "falls" into. One does not simply go to the trouble of scheduling a papal visit to Togo where one engages in prayer in common with animists just due to common "human weakness." These are not things that just happen to anybody. These are deliberate actions that John Paul II intentionally chose to do or intentionally allowed to happen- and those of us who choose to be intellectually honest understand that they were confusing and scandalous to the faithful, in addition to sending the wrong message to the pagans, who were encouraged in the worship of their false gods. And, even if John Paul II did somehow "fall" into the Assisi meetings in 1986, even if these were a "slip-up", it is hard to see why he went ahead and did them again in 2002. Clearly they were intentionally set up to go down exactly as they did. So this is not really a matter of saying, "Eh, he's not perfect." This is matter of deliberate actions done that were confusing or potentially harmful to the faithful, to say nothing about their harm on the participants, who were falsely led into believing it is acceptable to worship their false gods.
We must remember, when we canonize a person who holds an office, we are also approving the manner in which he administered that office. One of the biggest misunderstandings modern Catholics have about canonization is that it is simply a declaration that someone is in heaven. I'm so sick of hearing that! "What's the big deal? All it means is that he's in heaven." If that were all it was, then we could canonize a death-row murderer who maintained his impenitence until a moment before death when he suddenly decides to accept baptism one minute prior to execution. After all, he's in heaven! Clearly this is too simplistic.
Whenever we canonize someone, we are not just affirming they are in heaven, but we are affirming that they have done deeds that are worthy of emulation. Furthermore, tf this person holds an office, like a bishop, priest, pope, or king, then we are also affirming that what they did in that office is worthy of emulation - that they were not just a holy man or woman, but an ideal abbot, abbess, king, queen or whatever. Has it ever been otherwise? Do you know of any saint-kings who were personally holy but terrible kings? How about sainted bishops who were personally holy but made awful bishops? How about sainted popes who were personally holy but the Church went down the toilet under their administration? When a saint really does look like they will not be able to deal with their office, they resign it, like St. Celestine, or St. Cuthbert, who resigned his bishopric for a life of seclusion. What they do not do is stick around for two decades, mismanage the affairs of their communities, confuse and scandalize everybody and then get proclaimed a saint anyway while everyone shrugs off their very obvious flaws.
To canonize an office holder is to canonize the manner in which they held the office. St. Gregory the Great is a saint not just because he was personally holy but because he was a model pope, St. Charles Borromeo because he was a model bishop, St. Francis because he was a model mendicant, St. Thomas because he was a model teacher and theologian. Nothing is more contrary to the tradition of the Church and the meaning implicit in canonizations than to draw a distinction between someone's personal holiness and the manner in which they fulfilled their vocation. The two are united. In fact, one's personal holiness is directly contingent upon how one fulfills one's vocation. One cannot become a sainted bishop while simultaneously having failed in the most fundamental aspects of an episcopal vocation. It's so simple, we could make a meme out of it:
I have been giving extreme examples, and I am certainly not saying John Paul II was a failure as a pope. There are many things I did that I think were wonderful. I have no qualms, however, about saying that John Paul II was not an ideal pope, much less is he worthy he being called "the Great." The reasons for me saying this are those common to most traditionalists, and I will not argue each point here. But the important thing is to realize that to canonize John Paul II is to canonize his scandals. The faithful will have no way to distinguish between the praiseworthy and the scandalous in his pontificate, especially since those pushing the cause of John Paul II have never offered an official explanation for these scandals (I even tried to write them and ask for one; see here). The faithful will see St. John Paul the Great praying with pagans at Assisi and think this is Catholic missiology; they will see him kissing the Koran and think this is how we ought to interact with Islam. And who will tell them any differently, eh? If nobody bothered to explain it while John Paul II was on the throne, they sure won't bother to now that he's being raised to the altars.
There is much more we could say. I will probably do another post in the near future about this issue of "fast-tracking" the two late pontiffs to get them canonized.
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