Peter CostelloThe Saints: A Short History
by Simon Yarrow
(Oxford University Press, £10.99)
The author of this short, but packed book, is the author of a well received earlier one, Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories of Twelfth-Century England (Clarendon Press, £50). So he is something of an expert on the origins and the making of saints. But strangely enough some of the most interesting remarks in this new book deal with very recent times.
Many associate saints with the Middle Ages, especially those who are not in any way religious. Yet Simon Yarrow suggests the Church is actually passing a great period for saints of all kinds.
He points out that between 1846 and 1978 only 158 saints were canonised by the Catholic Church – less than one a year. But the advent of Pope John Paul II, now canonised himself, made a difference. “Since then more than a thousand saints have been canonised and a small army of the beatified await promotion to full cult status upon their completion of a second miracle.” This breaks down to 26 a year.
In the old days there were times when others nations could look with envy on the remarkable sanctity of the Italians and the Spanish so many of them were canonised. Pope John Paul II widened the base of sanctity, but often with a personal interest.
Changes
Edith Stein, for instance, who died in Auschwitz, was martyred in Karol Wojtyla’s Diocese of Krakow.
He also answered the popular desire of countless Catholics to canonise Padre Pio – a move which had been resisted Yarrow suggests because the phenomena with which he was associated were “too medieval” for the officials in charge of the process. Yarrow writes (on what authority he does not say) the process was advanced because Woytyla’s rise to pontifical eminence was predicted by the holy mystic when he met the Polish priest-pilgrim in 1947.
John Paul II changed the process. Many were bothered that the changes did away with the office of Advocatus Diaboli, which attempted to present a balanced view of any candidate. (This role was the subject of one of the best novels of the late Morris West, The Devil’s Advocate (1959), which was commended by Flannery O’Connor and compared by some critics with Graham Greene’s work.)
Yet the change in a process reflected the ancient practice of saints being made by acclamation which ended when the process of canonisation was taken into the hands of Rome in the 11th Century. At last saints for wider range of cultures – were to be canonised – such as our own the Venerable John Sullivan, whose cause has at long last been moved forward.
Many remain suspicious of the influence exerted by rich and powerful Catholic organisations on just who is moved upon; but undoubtedly many cultures are now happy to have a saint of their own.
With the election of Pope Francis there have been other tweaks to the system. The cause of Oscar Romero, which had been stalled under Pope John Paul II (perhaps from his dislike of “liberation theology”), was advanced by Pope Benedict and by Pope Francis.
More remarkable was the canonisation of Luis and Zellie Martin, the parents of St Thérèse of Liseux, which seemed to many to be a recognition of the often unknown saints that walk among us filled with goodness, but pass unseen and reclaimed by the Church.
And that is perhaps a point to bear in mind, considering these long centuries of Chrstians holiness. Yarrow writes at the opening of his book of a saint as a sort of hero to be emulated. But there is also another way of seeing them as only a portion of the love and goodness that fills others, and ought to fill more, if they were not distracted by often pharasaical attitudes to the religion they claim to profess.
This book is merely a primer, a brief introdction to one of the most fascinating and a complex matters in church history and life. Let us hope it will lead many casual readers on to make some wonderful, life changing discoveries for themselves, among the community of the Saints.