129 - The Meaning of Saints

The Meaning of Saints
By Lawrence S. Cunningham
New York, Harper & Row, 1980. 186 pp. $9.95.

This book might more accurately be titled "Sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church: Past and Future" since the Orthodox and Protestant aspects are, admittedly, not considered. Professor of religion at Florida State University, the author is conversant with current fiction and assumes the prerogative of identifying Roman Catholic saints. Pursuing that course, he suggests a change in the process of selection "the better to reflect contemporary exigencies and sensibilities."

The book essentially is (1) an objective, historical survey, of the traditional system of defining and canonizing saints; and (2) a proposal as to what the new system might be. Subdivision (1) quite accurately delineates some basic observations on the development of the veneration of saints in the Western church and of the process of canonization; (2) describes the author's personal reflection on the "new sanctity" of the modern age. UnfortunateIy, certain inconsistencies are present (for example, he states that saints should be elected by, vox populi during their lifetime, but later concedes that the 50-year waiting period decreed by Rome is sensible). The work is also flawed by extravagant views like Charlie Chaplin's possible sainthood and Wesley's potential canonization by Rome. And the extraneous material, gratuitously injected, renders it at best journalistic, at worst sensational--something less than a locus classicus.

Cunningham disagrees with using the miraculous as a criterion for canonization:

It reduces the saint to the level of a thaumaturge. The miraculous became the basic criterion in the fourth century, and is best exemplified by St. Martin of Tours. In the modern world we must endeavour to see the saints apart from the thaumaturgic element, as paradigms.

Not denying miracles, he wishes to reduce their impact, a healthy reaction to the medieval and post-Tridentine church position. It is useful, however, to remember that according to St. Augustine the

130 - The Meaning of Saints

miracles worked by the relics of martyrs were worked by faith. Therefore, valid theological reasons exist for retaining the miraculous as a criterion for public veneration.

According to the author, contemporary society's lack of interest in saints rests on the faulty process of canonization. which favors persons from religious orders. Actually the preponderance of saints from religious orders in the modern church is largely due to the fact that they were martyred as missionaries. He also disparages the criterion of doctrinal orthodoxy, which works to prevent man modern thinkers, like Teilhard de Chardin, from being considered.

The major thrust of the book is to justify a wider use of the term "saint." Not synonymous with a miracle worker or with those formally canonized, a saint is "a person so grasped by a religious vision that it becomes central to his or her life in a way that radically changes the person and leads others to glimpse the value of that vision" (p. 65). Obviously, included in this broad definition are many individuals with political pretensions. In fact, the author cites Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Dag Hammarskjold, and dissenters from totalitarian societies, like Solzhenitsyn. He also nominates such fictional characters as the "Jesus figures" in the novels or Ignazio Silone and Camus. And the author's inclusion of an "ahistorical" type like Mother Teresa of Calcutta is understandable.

Since he dwells on the "hiddenness" of modern sanctity, it is ironic that most of his nominations for sainthood are famous figures who have published books and received recognition in the world.

The question is whether the author is dealing with Christian, let alone Roman Catholic, saints. Does the "hiddenness of sanctity." independent of the church, permit the alleged saints to have no formal allegiance to the institutional church called upon to canonize them? Is all that is required "some sense of burning transcendence"'? The logical extreme of this theory is Andrew Young's suggestion that the Ayatollah is a saint. Unfortunately. man of history's proved criminals have had a sense of "burning transcendence." The public confession of, and personal identification with the Lord Jesus Christ, found without reservation in the martyrs of the ancient church, is absent from such theories. This seems to constitute a major and irreconcilable break with the Christian tradition. Obviously, therefore, Cunningham's assertion that his criteria for sainthood do not constitute a break with the past is in error.

Margaret Schatkin
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts