by Fred Moleck
Saints Who Broke the Mold
After last week’s column went up in the usual spot on GIA’s website, I felt that the point of Halloween—All Hallows Eve, Eve of All Saints—was lost.“Where were the hallows in Halloween?” I asked myself.
Some of you commented that my description of the porch Halloween environments and music ambience sounded familiar to their families’ efforts to scare little and big children out of their skulls.
Some even saw it a type of white gringo version of Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. I think they’re right, but the Hispanic tradition is more authentic.
The bottom line of the Hispanic view of death is that they laugh at death. From the costumed skeletons to the table of the deceased, as certain that there is death, so too is the certainty that death has been vanquished.
It sure sounds like the paschal mystery to me.
After I checked it out on the website just to make sure it went up, I felt that the column was insufficient.
That was on Monday. Last Wednesday, All Saints Day, if you will, in the New York Times, James Martin, the Jesuit priest who is an associate editor of America, wrote an op-ed piece entitled “Saints That Weren’t.”
(If you are a frequent reader of America you will likely recognize his name. His byline states that he is the author of My Life with the Saints, Ignatian Press, March 2006.)
In his piece he cited two saints I’d never heard of. One was Mother Theodore Guerin, who was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI last month. The other is Mother Mary McKillup.
Let me describe Mother Theodore Guerin.
She was a woman religious who founded the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods in Indiana in the mid 1800s.
(Sorry Notre Domers, Fr. Sorin’s Holy Crossers were not the only religious community in Indiana at the time.)
What is wildly interesting is the conflict Mother Guerin was having with the ordinary of the diocese in which she was doing her work, Bishop Celestine de la Hailandiere of Vincennes, Indiana.
Even people today in the Diocese of Vincennes would be hard-pressed to identify him as one of the bishops of Indiana. I dare say thousands know Mother Theodore Guerin.
Hailandiere did everything he could to suppress her mission, such as ordering her community to elect a new superior. The sisters elected her again. He tried to eject her from Indiana. That didn’t work.
He was quickly replaced by a Vatican decree. Now the order has 465 members in ten states, the District of Columbia, China, and Taiwan.
So there.
Saints are saints, but they didn’t always receive full approval and endorsement of the official church. Mother Guerin was one—plus Joan of Arc, Thomas Aquinas, and even St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.
Another wonderful source on saints et al, which gives a more complete picture of what it takes to be a saint, is Saints Behaving Badly by Thomas J. Craughwell (Doubleday, a division of Random House, 2006).
What he supplies is little-known information about the great saints of the church way before their conversion to a virtuous life.
The following is an excerpt from the table of contents in his book to give you some idea of his approach:
St. Matthew, Extortionist
St. Hippolytus, Anti-pope
St. Moses the Ethiopian, Cutthroat and Gang Leader
St. Olaf, Viking
St. John of God, Gambler and Drunkard
St. Ignatius of Loyola, EgoistThere are twenty-two left in the column.
He doesn’t dwell exclusively about their carousing and bawdy behavior. He spends some time on the giving-it-all-up as they fall into God’s love.
My amazement about both of these books is that they were written. Surely, enough has been composed on the saints, their lives, and their impact on the church.
Not so. Craughwell does a great service to us and the church—the saints were real people who frequently faced real problems generated by the official church.
They were declared saints, these extortionists, gamblers, drunkards, and even Vikings.
Wait a minute . . . what’s so wrong about being a Viking? Buy the book and read pages 95–102, the chapter on St. Olaf.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net