And Here I Thought the Greatest Cost was the One Christ Paid

Published on by D. G. Hart

Brian O’Neel thinks that the process of making saints has slighted the church in the U.S.:

My conviction is born out of a project on which I’m working. I am building a database of every saint and where each is buried. This catalogue is grouped by country, then by city and then by location.

So far, Italy has 82 pages. France, the next biggest country, has 34; and Germany, with the third greatest total, has 13. Korea — which has had the faith for less time than we have — has the fourth highest total of saints by country.

The United States has six and a half pages. Not bad, you think, right? Except that many of the entries on the U.S. document are shrines and places with reliquary chapels (e.g., St. Anthony’s in Pittsburgh). Or they are places that have had the benefit of getting a Roman martyr’s remains gifted to them or have a relic, such as of St. Anne or Blessed John Paul II.

There are a few such places on the aforementioned lists, granted. By and large, however, the above registers are comprised of homegrown saints.

Is it really possible we have no more saints in our nation than those already noted? Has not every diocese produced a saint? The questions are rhetorical. Of course each has. Of course we have more. It is possible — probable, even — that the Church Triumphant gains a new American every day. Unfortunately, we don’t know of them.

He goes on to explain why local saints are preferable to foreigners:

. . . it’s one thing to imitate or pray for the intercession of St. Anthony, who lived in Padua, Italy, in the 13th century. It’s another to do so with someone who lived in your back yard, who visited the places you know, who touched the things you can still touch.

And certainly, with the experience of nearly 500 years of Catholicism on these shores (the Gospel first came to what is now the United States in 1542), we have more than enough examples of holiness to increase the known number of American saints.

Even if the U.S. has lots of saints (or potential ones), do American parishes and dioceses have the cash?

Granted, many practical impediments exist to beginning such an undertaking. Candidly, the biggest of these is the cost.

Causes of saints are hugely expensive. There are witnesses to depose, evidence to collect, out-of-pocket expenses to reimburse, occasional stipends, if not salaries, to disburse, not to mention printing of prayer cards and brochures and other expenditures. All of this can cost between $250,000 to $1 million, spread out over many years.

Indeed, part of the expense comes from the fact that it often takes decades, even centuries, to pursue someone’s canonization. (For this reason, please don’t throw away those fundraising solicitations you get in the mail from, say, the Bishop Frederick Baraga cause.)

Not to worry, though. The Early Church Fathers were all over prayer cards and fundraising.

34 thoughts on “And Here I Thought the Greatest Cost was the One Christ Paid”

  1. The United States has six and a half pages. Not bad, you think, right? Except that many of the entries on the U.S. document are shrines and places with reliquary chapels (e.g., St. Anthony’s in Pittsburgh).

    What word does Paul use again and again in his letters when addressing the people of the churches? Answer:Saints.

    I rememeber having an elder ask me that question in the OPC memebership interview, years ago, before the session. Twas a new concept in me then, but what was being said to me was not lost on me then, nor is it to this day.

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  2. The most revered saint of all was known in Latin as St. Sine Qua Non. In the vernacular he’s simply known as St. Mammon.

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  3. Does Bryan Cross visit reliquaries.and shrines? Pray to saints? If not, why not? Bryan — please add all the wacky stuff to your call. Better yet, start bemoaning all the error and less-than-ideal stuff in your church. Then we’d have some common ground. We feel your hidden, suppressed, super-secret pain.

    Love,

    Chortles

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  4. These guys just love their ‘ladder-climbing religion’, don’t they?

    Maybe they ought use scouts to find potential Saints. And maybe a farm system.

    Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that I was actually a part of all of that. But I was just an ignorant little whippersnapper. The preachers of this stuff will be held accountable.

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  6. What’s great is that we can all have access to these saints. They are divine like Christ and can hear millions of simultaneous prayers.

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  7. “that have had the benefit of getting a Roman martyr’s remains gifted to them ” – Dude, careful when opening up that unsolicited Fed Ex package at the rectory.

    “the Gospel first came to what is now the United States in 1542” – Weren’t those Spaniards & Italians running around Catholics? They must have been too busy plundering to stop and share the gospel.

    “Candidly, the biggest of these is the cost” – Try getting an annulment or an indulgence. Pricey religion.

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  11. kent
    Posted January 27, 2014 at 10:18 am | Permalink
    What does Christ have to do with CtC?

    Rhetorical?

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  12. Jeremy Tate does and brags on it.

    Man, if you’re an adulterer at least feel a little guilt and shame. There’s some serious personal deception and deep suppression going on with the Callers. I fear some psychological crackups are in the offing for some of them (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

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  14. So quiet on the western front. Catholics? Comments? We aren’t at
    singularity in this blogwar, right?

    Technological singularity, is a hypothetical moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence

    Sent from my HTC One™ X, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

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  15. Erik – “Fabulous that Jason & The Callers could move from the Regulative Principle of Worship to Full-Fledged Idolatry without missing a beat.”

    B – Similar to the Israelites going from, “What the Lord has said, so we will do” in Exodus 24 to roughly 40 days later worshipping the golden calf. Sobering and humbling reminders for us to learn from. “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful who has promised.”

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  16. The Callers they act supercilious
    But who is obscuring the Filius?

    My next step is to work in hillbillyus. It’s not enough to have the soul of a poet. You also have to werk hard.

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  18. A W Pink—-Now far be it from us to sit in judgment upon such an excellent and helpful production as this Catechism, which God has richly blessed to thousands of His people, or that we should make any harsh criticisms against men whose shoes we are certainly not worthy to unloose. Nevertheless, the best of men are but men at the best, and therefore we must call no man “Father.”

    First, the definition or description of sanctification of the Westminster divines is altogether inadequate, for it entirely omits the most important aspect and fundamental element in the believer’s sanctification: it says nothing about our sanctification by Christ (Heb. 10:10; 13:12), but confines itself to the work of the Spirit, which is founded upon that of the Son.

    This is truly a serious loss, and affords another illustration that God has not granted light on all His Word to any one man or body of men. A fuller and better answer to the question of, “What is sanctification?” would be, “Sanctification is, first, that act of God whereby He set the elect apart in Christ before the foundation of the world that they should be holy. Second, it is that perfect holiness which the Church has in Christ and that excellent purity which she has before God by virtue of Christ’s cleansing blood. Third, it is that work of God’s Spirit which, by His quickening operation, sets them apart from those who are dead in sins, conveying to them a holy life or nature, etc.”

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  19. Thanks, DGH – I think I got it now.

    The Callers they act supercilious.
    Rendering Old Lifers bilious.
    Reformation wrong? Oh my! Silly us!
    But we aren’t obscuring the Filius.

    The Mudster rocks.

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  21. Chorts, he saw more potenshal in me. When I publish the poem, I’ll change the 3rd line to

    Reformation wrong? Oh my! Silly us!

    Always reforming poetry, too.

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  23. Question: Would toe nail clippings count as a relic to be prayed to if bones couldn’t be found? Or hair? Or is it just bones? Muslims have some of Mohammed’s beard clippings, but I don’t know if they make claims about it healing anyone.

    I know that (while not needed) the Scriptural justification for relics having power is 2 Kings 13:20-21 when Elisha’s corpse revives the corpse of a guy thrown in his grave. But what about 2 Kings 18:4 when Hezekiah recognized the people were beginning to worship (adore?) the bronze snake – a legitimately God instituted vehicle for healing – so he got rid of it?

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  24. Pat, yes.

    ‘These remains could be all or part of the person’s skeleton (most commonly a finger, but often a hand, foot, tooth, or even skull); they might also be fingernails or locks of hair.”

    http://historymedren.about.com/od/rterms/g/Relics-And-Reliquaries.htm‘

    And I apologize in advance for this from the Catholic scholar Carlos Eire’s “War Against the Idols.”

    “The body of St. Elizabeth of Hungary was mobbed by a crowd of worshipers while it was lying in state, and was quickly relieved of its funeral shroud, hair, nails, and other parts, including the nipples.”

    You can’t make this stuff up. Notice the word “worshippers” — pretty obvious who or what they were worshipping. The Reformation was…kind of a big deal.

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  25. And if it’s still cool to pay devotion to saints and “relics” does not the above account just mean that Jason, Jeremy, and Bry are just a little, uh, lacking in devotional intensity? Get with it or get out, I say. Don’t just be all in logic- and 3000 question catechism-wise. Start slinging snot and bowing to objects and fictions! Pilgrimize!

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  30. Chorts, it’s all fair. I will say in defense of many RC’s, that we saw this as just as superstitious and primitive and even pagan, as it is. Now, having said that, the relics opportunities, including bone fragments of deceased popes being ingrained in altars, is not a mere side issue, it’s practiced across the whole spectrum of observants.

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  31. So it’s not all logic and paradigms and endless chains of catechism answers. As a news photographer I used to rub shoulders with Knights of Columbus boys gettin’ loaded in broad daylight in the churchyard, smokin’ barbecue for charity. They never mentioned any of the Bryan-y stuff. I liked them.

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  33. Pat – I know that (while not needed) the Scriptural justification for relics having power is 2 Kings 13:20-21 when Elisha’s corpse revives the corpse of a guy thrown in his grave.

    Erik – I’d want to get the hell out of there, too.

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  34. CW – As a news photographer I used to rub shoulders with Knights of Columbus boys gettin’ loaded in broad daylight in the churchyard, smokin’ barbecue for charity.

    Erik – I’d actually hang out with those guys.

    If you covered the Callers they would all be dressed in breeches and flat caps, sitting around drinking tea with their pinkies extended,

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