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GEORGIA BULLETIN, THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1968
5
John Cogley
People Know A Saint Without Canonization
I RATHER hope that there will be
no more saints canonized by Rome,
mainly because the whole business of
canonization was allowed to become a
cut-and-dried ecclesiastical affair totally
removed from the life led by Christians
in the world. Time after time we read
about the canonization of
Mothers-Founder and holy monks
whose names were almost immediately
forgotten and whose deeds were as
remote from most of us as those of an
Oriental ascetic in a Buddhist lamasery.
The whole institution of
canonization became politicized, so to
speak, with religious orders vying with
another to have the
human symbol of
their work and
identity raised to
the altars. The
trend reached the
point of absurdity
few years ago when
it was decreed by
none less than the
Pope himself that if
John XXIII was to be canonized, equal
consideration must be given to Pius XII.
With that suggestion, the Holy Father
unwittingly abolished whatever meaning
still remained in the process of
canonization.
But to have lost faith in the tinny
process of canonization does not mean
that one has ceased to believe in saints,
or in people who more than most of us
have succeeded in overcoming the world
and living according' to the Christian
ideal. The difference .-is- that it now
appears clear the Christian people will
have to discover their own saints, pick
out their own models of Christian living.
It seems irrelevant today for a group
of ecclesiastics to go through a heavily
juridicial process, initiated by some
well-to-do religious order, in order to
exalt the order as well as the symbol it
has chosen to represent it in the
catalogue of the saints. For no one,
aside from the members of the order
themselves, and not even all of them,
really care.
WE WILL continue to have saints
and to believe in them, whatever the
Roman authorities do. But they may
not fulfill all the requirements that used
to be laid down for canonization.
They may, for example, come from
any walk in life. That was theoretically
always true, but the overwhelming
number of religious who were raised to
the altar made it clear that in practice
the layman and even the diocesan priest
were largely ignored in favor of the
monastic.
Then, again, I don’t think anyone is
very interested anymore in whether the
proposed saint has any relationship to
miracles after his death. This “testing”
now appears crude and almost
irreverent. We are not so much
interested in what the holy one does
after death as in what he did while he
was still alive.
But more radical than any of these
departures from tradition is the idea
that the saint need not have been a
member of the Roman Catholic Church,
with his credentials in good order. It is
clear to almost all of us now that the
spiritually heroic are found in all the
various houses of the Christian
community; no one denomination or
communion has an exclusive claim on
sanctity. We have seen too many
examples of the model Christian in
churches other than our own to put
much credence in tests of orthodoxy
any longer.
For all these reasons the suggestion
that Martin Luther King might be
regarded widely as a saint does not seem
amiss.
NONE OF US, to be sure, has any
knowledge of the private spiritual life
led by Dr. King. As in the case of
others, that book was sealed with his
death. But he did live a most public life,
and from that record we can draw
encouragement and sustenance for our
own spirit. It would be hard to think of
anyone in our lifetime who gave a
better example of Christian living than
Dr. King, with the spotlight on him over
the years.
After his death, we heard again and
again from those closest to him that Dr.
King’s passion for justice was matched
by his exortations to his followers not
to hate. He himself, even' under the
gravest provocation, never gave any hint
of succumbing to bitterness. On the
essential point of charity, then, it seems
that he passed with flying colors.
He knew that he was up against blind
hatred and was in constant danger of
being killed, but he went ahead, not
seeking martyrdom but ready at
anytime to accept it. His love for his
fellow man passed the supreme test.
Finally, there was his doctrine of
noh-violence. Dr. King’s approach to
social evil of monumental proportions
was evangelical, not only in theory but
in fact. No doubletalk obscured the
pure teaching of the Gospel. There was
no theological obfuscation, no shabby
compromise with worldly wisdom. To
the end, he did all in his power to
abolish suffering and bloodshed.
Without him, how many more killings
there might have been, how many lives
might have been lost, we will never
know.
IF ONE WERE looking for a model
for the whole Church at this point in
history, when the Church is stricken
with a sense of guilt for its indifference
in thopast and the hardness of its heart,
who would be better than this modest
Baptist clergyman? For this reason, I
believe that it makes no difference what
Rome or any other center of
Christianity does about canonizing him.
The people know a saint when they see
one, and they have seen one in Martin
Luther King.
SUNDAY
MASS AT
1 A.M.
SAINT ANTHONY’S
CHURCH
(GORDON AT ASHBY S.W.)
Liberalized Abortion Law Passes
Georgia has a more liberal
abortion law on its books, but it
became law without the signature
of Gov. Lester Maddox.
The new law legalizes abortion
in cases where continuation of
pregnancy would endanger the
life or seriously and permanently
Nuns Seek
injure the health of the mother;
where the child would likely be
born with grave and permanent
mental or physical defects; or
where the pregnancy resulted
from forcible or statutory rape.
The bill, however, is not as
broad as first proposed bill which
was opposed in a hearing before
the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Robert E. Andrews of
Gainesville, one of the bill’s
sponsors, said other provisions
make it necessary to get
permission Trom the expectant
mother before an abortion is
performed and permits the
solicitors general power to delay
abortions for investigation and to
prosecute if the law is wrongfully
used.
Bigger Role
MEDELLIN, Colombia (NC) -
Latin America’s 140,000 women
Religious should have a share in
planning the Church’s pastoral
work, a group of nuns said here.
The religious needs of the
Latin American will go partially
uncared for “unless women
Religious become part of the
Church’s pastoral work at the
executive, thinking and
programming levels,” the nuns
said.
The statement was published
at the end of a three-month
course at the Liturgical Institute
here attended by 41 nuns from
18 religious communities and
nine countries.
They said that “women have a
very specific and definite view of
the religious values and needs” of
the people, and that their view
should compliment the male
concept.
The nuns asked the Latin
American Bishops to seek the
help of the area’s women
Religious in preparing for the
hierarchy’s coming plenary
meeting.
They also asked their
chaplains to be in the vanguard
of the renewal movement.
One change makes it necessary
that three physicians must agree,
after separate examinations, on
the necessity of abortion for the
sake of the mother or unborn
child’s health.
Another amendment provides
that the abortion must be
performed in a licensed hospital
and detail reports must be filed
with authorities.
Though he did not sign the
new law, the governor earlier
signed a revision of the state’s
criminal code which included
basically the same provisions
relating to abortion.
Maddox said he felt the
criminal code as a whole
outweighed any slight
reservations he had about
safeguards in the abortion law.
INTERNATIONAL
CATHOLIC
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