medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Since, as others have pointed out, there is no question of any martyrs in this instance, for anyone who died that day to be even considered for investigation for sanctity he or she would have had to have lived a life of heroic virtue for some time--that is, lived a life of generous charity, love of God and neighbor that stood out. Apart from martyrs, canonizations rest on long patterns of holiness in word and deed, not a single event. And the whole point with martyrs is that one will not withstand the pressures to recant and escape martyrdom unless one is already living out of strong, selfless faith. There are exceptions, as always--notorious sinners suddenly converted whose life of heroic virtue may have been quite short, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule.
A life of heroic virtue is the single most important factor. Miracles are merely corroborative. Even martyrdom, as pointed out above, in some sense is merely corroborative of what was already present (by God's grace--fundamental to Christian theology is the simple fact that no one lives a life of selflessnes without God's grace).
There's an interesting discusion of this by the Carthusian, Boniface Ferrer (brother of Vincent) from the early 15thc. He is very much aware that few Carthusians had been canonized (the order, as far as I can tell, _never_ furthered the cause of the canonization of any of its members--those Carthusians who were canonized were monks who had been made bishops or who in some other way came into contact with life outside the monastery. Most Carthusian canonizations and beatifications are in fact the result of the large number of 19thc "confirmations of long-standing popular cultus." Ferrer points out that miracles are not really needed at all to demonstrate someone's holiness. Only where someone's sanctity was in doubt (and many saints, of course, were subject to accusations of scandalous behavior), did it become necessary for God to grant miracles to resolve doubts that people might otherwise have had. And cases of doubt/controversy etc., Ferrer astutely noted, most frequently arise when a person is in a leadership position, active in the world. The tractate has never really be properly edited and is available most readily in an obscure 19thc Spanish transcription.
Thus the first step in a cause is to establish heroic virtue; only then can miracles be investigated. If investigation does not demonstrate heroic virtue, then it makes no difference whether a million miracles have been attributed to the candidate--the cause ends right there.
The above applies most clearly to the post-Urban VIII procedures, but in germ, these principles were operative at least from the high MIddle Ages onward. The situation in the early Middle Ages is much messier--we all know some rather questionable local cults made it through.
Theologically, however, it is important to remember that canonized saints are only a small subset of the entire body of saints. Anyone present in heaven is a saint; some have been singled out for canonization/liturgical veneration. In Christian theology, victims of disasters, wars, injustices etc. are saints if they are in heaven, period. This is one point on which Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox would agree. THe difference is that Orthodox and Catholics have procedures (which differ in degrees of systematization, in large part because the idea of canonized saints came under attack in the Latin West but not in the Orthodox East) for listing some on the liturgical rolls (canon). The most liturgical of Protestants have systems closest to Catholics and Orthodox (Lutherans, Anglicans). The least liturgical Protestants have no such thing and oppose it, but of course, it makes no sense if one has no formal church calendar.
Far too often, I fear, even scholars of Christian history forget that canonizations are fundamentally a matter of liturgical life. That is not to say that veneration of saints does not play a huge role in Catholic and Orthodox life, but it does so in part because liturgy plays a huge role.
>>> [log in to unmask] 09/11/05 1:56 PM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Quoting John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Today (11. September) is the feast day of:
>
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.
--V. K. Inman
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