medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Sunday, September 11, 2005, at 2:56 pm, V. Kerry Inman wrote:
>I am not a Catholic, but as an American I ask: is there anyone who was
>killed in American on September 11 who is on the fast track to
sainthood? Surely
>among all the Irish police and firemen who died there was a zealous
Roman Catholic
>whom we could see as a Saint.
Why does she or he have to have been a Roman Catholic? Other bodies,
Christian and non-Christian, recognize sainthood in various ways and,
consequently, recognize as saints persons not so considered by the
Roman church. If you make the latter your _de facto_ arbiter in this
regard, you pretty well exclude persons whose sainthood it is unlikely
to proclaim either now or at any time in the near future. E.g., the
Roman Catholic chaplain of the Fire Department of the City of New York
on 11. September 2001, the Reverend Father Mychal Judge OFM, who even
were he found to have been sufficiently meritorious in other ways might
have a hard time getting past his proclamation by USAmerican gays as
one of their own. To say nothing of any non-Catholic victims whose
sainthood may have been manifest on that day as on others.
The victims of 9/11 were killed not for their religion but for their
country of temporary or permanent residence. They included in their
number Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians who were not
Catholics of the Roman obedience, and probably a fair number of
atheists and agnostics as well. They were therefore not martyrs for
whatever faith they may have professed, if any. _A fortiori_, that
subset of them who perished helping others were also not martyrs for
their faith. And it's usually only martyrs whose sainthood is made
perfectly manifest through one single action (their martyrdom); for
everyone else, an extended period of exceptionally exemplary behavior
is a _sine qua non_ for recognized sainthood. Possibly there was such
a person or two among the victims of 9/11. If so, though, the
documentation to establish her/his/their sainthood to the world at
large is not yet a matter of widespread public knowledge.
Best,
John Dillon
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