Last week my son and I saw the Galileo/Medici exhibit at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute Science Museum. The information about Galileo’s trial didn’t go below the surface or delineate the church’s efforts to move beyond it, which was too bad.
As we’ve discussed here in previous posts, in the centuries that have followed, the Vatican has shown not only a fascination with science, but a willingness to use the tools of science to encourage faith.
Evolution and astronomy are two areas that seem to be of interest to the Vatican, but a topic probably even more captivating to readers is the science used to evaluate whether healings and other occurences are miracles aided by the intercession of a saint candidate. In an article published this past weekend, Boston Globe religion writer Michael Paulson looks both at the process the church uses to investigate healings — and the dramatic, deeper, and more difficult questions that mark the place where belief and science intersect.
I confess that I chuckled at the odd subtitle — here in America, we’d all be happy with a miracle in the healthcare field right now.
After beginning by describing a local healing deemed by the Vatican to be Cardinal John Henry Newman’s first miracle, Paulson comments that “the very idea of miracles may seem deeply at odds with modernity.” But not only does the Catholic church require two miracles for full-fledged sainthood (canonization), but the recent pace of canonizations has sped up under the last two popes.
So over the last several decades, there has been a paradoxical confluence of two phenomena: at the same time that medical science has become increasingly adept at explaining how the human body heals, the Roman Catholic Church is in need of — and finding — an increasing number of inexplicable healings. The result is an unusual process, in which the Vatican has had to develop a medical expertise to help separate remarkable but understandable recoveries from those healings for which medicine has no explanation.
There’s a question lurking here that I haven’t seen anyone address (which doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t) — why Pope John Paul II and Benedict are canonizing so many saints. Is this one of the side effects of our increased access to information? Is it rooted in the faith of these popes? Or it is a chicken/egg phenomena — because the Vatican now can more easily find evidence for healings that can’t be scientifically explained, it’s easier to move the process along?
Paulson doesn’t address this subject — and he doesn’t go too deeply into what it means to say, as Catholics do, that the saints “intercede” for “those who seek their help.” But he does chart the move from saints being canonized for “fantastical” events (surely writers can find another word for these outsized happenings) to unexplained medical healings. Here’s a terrific quote from the Rev. James Martin explaining the criteria for miracles.
“The church requires its miracles to be verifiable, and normally the ones that are easiest to verify (in the sense of “scientific” evidence) are healings from illness,” said the Rev. James Martin, an associate editor of America magazine and the author of “My Life with the Saints.” “They must be immediate, permanent (no relapsing), not attributable to any other treatments, clearly documented by medical evidence, and the result of intentional prayers for the saint’s intercession.”
In other words, the standards for verifiablity are very high.
The writer makes an effort to give us a story which goes beyond the usual “what you need to get canonized” summary which can get so deep into details that it can make the Vatican seem like another bureaucracy.
Since science and how science looks at supernatural phenomena is one of the themes, he talks to a scientist outside the faith. Patrick McNamara’s point of view, while skeptical, seems vastly different from that of say, a Richard Dawkins. Would that the media took more time to see out those who question scientific orthodoxy rather than construct it. We might get some really interesting stories.
Paulson even brings in another challenge to the methodology around saint-making — that of Catholics who ask whether saints need miracles to be canonized at all. Are miracles the only correct criteria?
There’s a question a lot of others may be asking.
In a story that covered a lot of ground, Paulson manages to make the local connections, provide historical perspective, underline how much the scientific method is having an impact on an ancient faith — and hint at the notion that faith may also be having an impact on science and the way scientists look at mystery. It’s an excellent example of local reporting that explores much more general themes — the tension between science and religion, the paradox of miracle and modernity, and the conundrums of quantifying the supernatural.
Picture of Cardinal John Henry Newman from Wikimedia Commons
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Comments (13) |
July 13, 2009, at 6:28 pm
The article assumes that a ‘saint’ is a state confirmed by the Catholic church. But that’s not always true, even in Christianity. I was able to find another example:
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Oakerhater/bio.html
In Sufism, such people can be called “Wali’s” or Friends of God. Kabir in India had miracles attributed to him. So I wish the story had included a nod to non-Catholic saints.
That is the question. The internal state is, to me, the real criteria but how can ordinary people know who is a saint and who is not.
July 13, 2009, at 9:16 pm
They are not a criterion at all in the case of martyrs. Their willingness to die for the faith is the only testimony necessary.
The only other quibble I would have with the question as posed is that the issue is not with “miracles” but with verifiable ‘healing miracles.’ The cause for beatification/canonisation of Venerable Matt Talbot has been impeded by the lack of such healing miracles. But many would accredit his intercession for their own recovery from addictions to alcohol or drugs.
July 13, 2009, at 9:29 pm
I think that the increased rate of canonizations still has more do with JPII than Benedict. The canonization process can take a while and Benedict is probably still canonizing people who were put into the pipeline, so to speak, by his predecessor. In fact, Benedict wanted a more deliberate pace with canonizations than John Paul, so perhaps we will see a slower pace, if we haven’t already slowed down a bit (I don’t keep close track).
July 14, 2009, at 10:16 am
If a reporter wanted to produce a unique story on saintly miracle cures he or she could dig out cases that are, say, fifty years old and run them past scientists today to see if the “miracles” still hold up in the light of modern knowledge.
July 14, 2009, at 10:45 am
I think Jerry N is right. In addition to the increased number of canonizations, John Paul II sped up the process by getting rid of the “Devil’s Advocate” who was responsible for digging up any dirt that might exist in regard to the candidate. Saints were a really big deal in Poland. I think part of his motivation was to give various nationalities some heroes to be proud of.
Saints have to have someone to promote their cause which requires time and money. There is an overabundance of saints in the past several hundred years who were the founders of religious orders - the order would dedicate the full-time job and money necessary to push the cause to completion to burnish their order’s reputation. There has been an effort to widen the range of candidates to include more lay people.
And some of the increased numbers are due to groups of martyrs being recognized. For instance the 8,000 plus Korean martyrs of 1839, 1846 and 1867 canonized in the 1980s by JPII. Then there were the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales beatified by JPII in 1987.
July 14, 2009, at 10:50 am
Forgot to mention that Benedict has moved the ceremonies for beatification to the locale of the candidate instead of everything being done at Rome.
I wonder, too, if modern science would punch holes in the medical miracles of the past.
July 14, 2009, at 12:28 pm
John Paul II deliberately and markedly increased the number of saints. The reason that he gave for it is his belief that saints are more common than is ordinarily assumed. Soon after Pope Benedict was elected, it was reported that he disagreed with John Paul II’s approach and intended to slow down the canonizations.
July 14, 2009, at 4:45 pm
I really appreciate this site, so I hope you don’t think of me as some troll. Nonetheless, I can’t help it:
“Paulson doesn’t address this subject — and he doesn’t go too deeply into what it means to say, as Catholics do, that the saints ‘intercede’ for ‘those who seek their help.’”
What is troubling about this? What is complicated about it?
July 14, 2009, at 5:11 pm
Chris-
The topic of intercession and what role the saints play was discussed in a recent post I did on a story from the Baltimore Sun http://www.getreligion.org/?p=14303. Here’s a post Terry did on the subject two years ago. http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2320. The question, as it’s been voiced here by Terry, is do Catholics pray “to” or “with” the saints? And a question I was interested in was: who does the healing, according to Catholic doctrine? God? God and the saints? Does the intercession of the saint help the process along?
I didn’t say that it was troubling. I do believe that it’s fair game for an article. Terry’s post got 93 comments!
July 14, 2009, at 7:35 pm
E. E.,
To understand the Catholic position, don’t deify Saints. Humanize them instead - think of the saints as your extended family. Kind of like an aunt or uncle who you know you can turn to in a pinch. And don’t let the miracles throw you off. Saints perform miracles the same way miracle workers on earth do, by the merit of their special communion with God.
Next, remember that pray in it’s most basic sense means to ask. So we can ask saints to pray for us or ask them directly for their help just as you might any other person. Let’s say you were in some legal trouble and your Aunt was friends with a really good lawyer who wouldn’t normally take a case like yours. You might ask your Aunt to pull some strings with her buddy to help you out. But say your Aunt is a really good lawyer herself, you’d probably just ask your her to help you directly. Similarly, you might also ask St. Thomas More to pray for you or you might ask him to directly intervene in your case.
The one caveat is that we’d never ask saints to do something that only God can do like forgive our sins.
As far as who does the healing, there’s probably no way to know in a scientific sense. In reality it’s most likely a moot point. The ultimate source of a miracle is God’s grace, whether the saint plays a role in asking for that grace on your behalf or in the delivery of the grace (or both) doesn’t really make too much of a difference. But I don’t understand why so many people accept the idea that you can ask a saint to be involved in asking for the grace, yet can’t conceive of a saint being involved in its delivery.
July 14, 2009, at 8:12 pm
Brain:
Actually the prayer is the part of a complaint or petition or motion that states what relief the Plaintiff is asking the court to provide.
Don’t know if this term is still being used in law courts, but it was for centuries.
July 14, 2009, at 8:13 pm
Brian:
I think you are smart, but I didn’t mean to address you as Brain. Sorry about that.
July 17, 2009, at 5:57 pm
An additional point is that in the previous centuries, it often took literally centuries for a Saint to be canonised. Anything under one century was extraordinarily uncommon.
That began to change in the early 20th century with Saints such as St Gemma Galgani (1878-1903) whom, although she was an stigmatic which normally slows down the canonisation process requiring futher investigations, was canonised only 37 years after her death. For more info see:
Canonisation of St Gemma
The advantage to this is that first hand eyewitnesses to the life and heroic virtue of the Saint in question are still alive and can attest to the facts.
Joseph Johnson