Saints As We Do Not Know Them By Fr. Desmond de Sousa CSsR, SAR NEWS
PANAJI, Goa (SAR NEWS) -- Christians all over the world observed the All Saints Day to glorify God for all the saintly people who lived and died for Christian ideals. While many saints led lives of quiet service, some led the life of courageous prophets, speaking the truth to those in power -- sometimes within the Church. Often, these prophets were mistreated, silenced or excommunicated by the officials of that very Church they loved so dearly and strove to serve so faithfully. Today they are worthy of "public veneration" by Catholics worldwide. St. Paul's confrontation with St. Peter (Gal 2:11-21) and his split with St. Barnabas over St. Mark (Acts 15:36-41) in the early Church may be well known. But his frustration with St. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem, needs to be highlighted. St. James and the Judaisers declared all gentiles had to first become Jews through circumcision before becoming Christians. Paul's response to his Galatian converts is, "I wish that the people who are upsetting you would go all the way; let them go on and castrate themselves!" (Gal.5/2 -12). The Church's long history of "faithful dissent" echoes the call of the Second Vatican Council (1964), which declared that expressing opinions "on matters concerning the good of the Church" is sometimes an obligation for the faithful. It offers both hope and perspective to Catholics in our time. In October this year, Pope Benedict XVI declared Mother Théodore Guérin a saint. She founded the Sisters of Providence and started several schools and a college in the rural region of the State of Indiana in the 1800s. The idea of an independent woman deciding where and when to open schools offended the Catholic bishop Célestine de la Hailandière of Vincennes, Indiana. In 1844, when Mother Guérin was away from her convent raising money, the bishop ordered her congregation to elect a new superior and to eject her from the very order of nuns that she had founded. The sisters, just as independent minded as their foundress, simply re-elected Mother Guérin. This infuriated Bishop Hailandière. He forbade Mother Guerin from entering her own convent, since he considered himself its sole proprietor. Three years later, the bishop again demanded that Mother Guérin resign. When she refused, the bishop announced to her congregation that she was no longer superior. He ordered her to leave Indiana and forbade her from communicating with her sisters. Her sisters in turn refused to obey his dictatorial orders. A few weeks later, as matters deteriorated further, Bishop Hailandière was suddenly replaced by the Vatican. >From then on, the Sisters of Providence flourished. Today, its 465 members work in 10 States, the District of Columbia, China and Taiwan. Many people think of women saints as habitually docile, especially to the bishop. But Mother Guérin was not the only saint to have found herself at odds with local bishops, church officials or even the Vatican. St. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake at the behest of the Church officials. St. Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380) was chosen to mediate between Pope Gregory XI and the warring city States. She successfully persuaded the Pope to return to Rome after the Avignon Captivity (1309–1377), when the Popes resided at Avignon in France. Pope Gregory XI's death led to the Great Western Schism (1378 –1417) with the election of Urban VI as Pope. His violent ways led to the election of anti-Pope Clement VII. Catherine, while defending Pope Urban's legitimacy, urged him to moderation. She died from her strenuous exertions in 1380. More recently, in 1871, Mother Mary MacKillop was excommunicated – the Church's severest punishment – four years after founding a religious order for women in Australia. One biographer commented that the bishops of the day were intimidated by Mary's "independent spirit and steely character." In 1995, Mary MacKillop was beatified, the final step before canonisation, by Pope John Paul II. Some saints have experienced firsthand that a sincere intention is no guarantee that everybody in the Church will listen — even today. India has no such tradition of courageous, prophetic Indian women who could be considered for canonisation. Maybe the cause of Sister Rani of Indore, savagely murdered for confronting the exploiters of the poor, could be a beginning. Of course, she has to pass the test of being martyred for the faith, not for political reasons. Who knows which future saints are lurking among the women religious and laywomen in action groups and peoples' movements, who have already or will in the future lay down their lives for the poor and downtrodden? This is an aspect of Saints As We Do Not Know Them. -- FN 9822122436 +91-832-240-9490 (phone calls after 1 pm please) Free the airwaves... for India's sake (see the article at the URL below) [http://www.tehelka.com/home/20061111/20061111.asp?filename=18.jpg] _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org