To many Catholics, this meeting came as a surprise.

Traditionally, the themes of detachment, sacrifice, humility and repentance appear far more frequently in religious writing and preaching than the spiritual benefits of a good laugh.

But as a specialist in medieval Christian history, I am aware that, since antiquity, many theologians, preachers, monastics and other Christians have embraced the role of humour as a valuable part of Christian spirituality.

Some have even become popularly known as the patron saints of comedians or laughter.

Comedy is natural

Many Catholic saints have considered laughter to be an integral part of nature itself.

For example, the 12th-century German nun St. Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic poet and musician, wrote in a poem on the power of God:

I am the rain coming from the dew
That causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.

In the 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi called himself the "Jongleur de Dieu" - troubadour or jester of God - because of his ministry.

He probably used a French reference because his mother came from France and spoke French at home.

Francis and his followers wandered from town to town, singing God's praises and preaching joyfully in the streets.

People laughed when he preached to birds in trees, and he once had to politely ask a large flock to stop chirping first.

The 16th-century nun and mystic St. Teresa of Avila wrote in a poem, alluding to the voice of Jesus Christ as love:

Love once said to me,
‘I know a song, would you like to hear it?'
And laughter came from every brick in the street
And from every pore in the sky.

Humour and play are an important part of human nature. They provide opportunities for relaxation and relief and offer a way to cope with the challenges of human life.

In the 13th century, Dominican scholastic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas composed a lengthy summary of theology that became one of the most important resources in the Catholic tradition: the Summa Theologica.

In it, he argued that humor and other kinds of joyful recreation offer the mind and soul the same kind of rest that the body needs.

Aquinas cautioned, however, that these kinds of words or activities must not become hurtful or indecent.

Comedy can heal

The shared experience of laughing can break down barriers across cultures and bring people together.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits in the 16th century, is said to have danced a jig to raise the spirits of a despondent man on retreat; he also praised a Jesuit novice for his healthy laughter.

In the same century, St. Philip Neri, who has been called the patron saint of humor and joy, was reputed to be a mystic and visionary.

To put others at ease, he engaged in pranks and jokes, once attending a gathering with half of his beard shaved off.

Some famous Catholic saints even faced death with a smile, such as the second-century deacon St. Lawrence, one of the patron saints of comedians.

The legend goes that as he was executed by being roasted alive on a gridiron over a hot fire, he joked with his executioners, saying, "Turn me over … I'm done on this side!"

This legend has carried over into the official story of his life.

The Carmelite nun St. Therese of Lisieux also lived a life marked by humour in the 19th century.

Even as she lay dying from tuberculosis at the age of 24, she is said to have joked with the other nuns and her doctor.

Supposedly, when a priest was called to give her the last rites, he refused because she looked too healthy. She replied that she would try to look sicker the next time he was called.

Popes and humor

Francis is far from the only pope to stress the value of humor in Catholic and Christian life.

Pope St. John XXIII, who in 1961 summoned the Second Vatican Council, calling all Catholic bishops worldwide to a series of formal meetings at the Vatican to update Catholicism, was known for his humour.

Famously, when asked once how many people worked at the Vatican, he replied, "About half of them."

The next pope, St. Paul VI - elected in 1963 - was an accomplished administrator known for his wit.

One of his papal documents was on the importance of "Christian joy."

Now on the path to sainthood as "blessed," John Paul I, who reigned for only a month in 1978, was known as "the smiling pope" because of his cheerfulness.

Pope St. John Paul II, the first non-Italian elected pope in almost 500 years, was only 58 years old when elected in 1978, and he was well-known for his sense of humour.

The German cardinal who succeeded him in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI, also valued the role of humour in a balanced Christian life: "Humour is in fact essential in the mirth of creation."

And before this 2024 audience with comedians, Francis discussed the topic of humor more fully in his 2018 apostolic exhortation.

In this important document, addressed to the whole Catholic Church, the Pope stated that holiness is within the reach of every believer and is achieved through a joyful life.

Humour has a section of its own within the exhortation.

In the audience with comedians on June 14, Francis, who took the name in honour of St. Francis of Assisi, the troubadour of God, has very publicly affirmed that for Catholics, humour is an important part of a faithful life.

The meeting even concluded with one of the pope's favorite prayers, for good humour, attributed to St. Thomas More, the chancellor of England under King Henry VIII - fitting, given More's legendary sense of humour.

Executed for treason in 1535, More is said to have asked the constable of the Tower of London to help him up the steps of the scaffold, with one of his last jokes: "For my coming down, I can shift for myself."

The prayer asks God for, among other things, "a good sense of humour … to share with others."

• First published in The Conversation
• Joanne M. Pierce is a Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Experts in history, philosophy, sociology, political science, psychology and education came together at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University April 17-19.

They presented talks including: the effects of mass violence waged by colonial powers; the misuse of the memory of the Holocaust; sexual predation in the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages; and slave holding by Jesuits in the United States.

Jesuit slavers

Jesuit Father David Collins, a professor of history at Georgetown University, presented a case study of his order's work in the United States.

This described "large communities of descendants of those who were held in slavery by Jesuits to develop programs of redress, repair and racial healing."

Their work started because a building on the Georgetown campus was being remodeled and people thought it would be opportune to change the building's name, he told Catholic News Service April 18.

The building had been named after an early 19th-century Jesuit who had played a role in the sale of hundreds of slaves in 1838.

The university's president could have, "with a swipe of the pen," changed the name right then and there to "something wholesome and edifying," Father Collins said.

He said the president saw "that would be sort of erasing history, making it disappear,".

He instead decided to make the name change "an opportunity to bring this history to the university's attention" and get the wider community involved in the process.

This resulted in the 2015 creation of the working group on slavery, memory and reconciliation that Father Collins chaired.

The benefit of time

"How do good people become involved in bad things?

"How do good people have blindnesses that make them incapable of seeing something that we're seeing with a certain amount of clarity a hundred years later?

"Those are important things to preserve," Father Collins said.

Memorials, for example, are just "partial stories" that select and tell one side of an historical event, he said.

A city like Rome, he said, is "full of memorials that are about the exercise of power and for the good,".

However, "these very exercises of power have had their victims and have done their violence.

"We need to understand that better than we have" and "to add to the part of the story that is neglected, which is that it's come at a cost."

The abuse crisis

Kathleen Sprows Cummings, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame and former director of its Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, spoke to CNS.

She said part of her work is "to think about saints as a way to … think about who we remember and why.

"This is also occurring in the backdrop of a conversation we're having in the United States" and elsewhere about "who do we honor and why through our memorials and monuments," she said.

Her talk to the conference, she said, wove together clerical sex abuse in the United States, "how this is impacting the saints we remember and the saints we're making and the saints we're not making, and how that is connected to public enshrinement."

One example of reinterpreting existing saints, she said, is looking at the life of St. Maria Goretti.

She died in 1902 at the age of 11 after she was stabbed by a 20-year-old for refusing his sexual advances and attempted rape.

"When I was growing up in a Catholic high school, the suggestion was that she was resisting temptation. She was being chaste," Sprows Cummings said. More to the point, "she was a child."

Today, the patron saint of chastity and purity is more often upheld as a patron saint of abused children and rape victims.

Furthermore, she said, "some dioceses call her the patron saint of safe environments for their training."

The abuse crisis has affected not only how people see saints from the past, but also future candidates, "perhaps saints who were whistleblowers or saints who did what they could," she said.

For example, she said, there is a change.org petition for the cause for canonistion of Sister Catherine Anne Cesnik, a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

She was found dead near a garbage dump in Baltimore in 1970. Her unsolved murder was featured in the Netflix documentary series, The Keepers.

"I don't think she's going to be canonised but the very fact that they're calling for it is indicative of a search for heroes," she said. Read more

Carol Glatz is a Senior Correspondent at Catholic News Service, Washington DC-Baltimore Area

They are ordinary people who worked diligently to grow in virtue, and are a sign of humanity's virtue, he said.

Think of the saints as "a kind of small circle of champions who live beyond the limits of our species" Francis wrote for his general audience on Wednesday in St. Peter's Square.

In fact, saints are people "who fully become themselves, who realise the vocation of every person" his audience heard.

"How happy would be a world in which justice, respect, mutual respect, the breadth of the spirit and hope were the shared norm and not a rare anomaly" he wrote.

The homily drew on a series of catechesis on virtues and vices.

A virtuous person is not one who allows him or herself to become distorted but "is faithful to his or her own vocation and fully realises his or herself" Francis wrote.

He noted the nature of virtue has been discussed and analysed since ancient times. It is not an "improvised" and "casual" good exercised from time to time, he explained.

Even criminals have performed good acts in certain moments, he said.

He described virtue as being a "good that is born from a person's slow maturation until it becomes his or her inner characteristic".

"Virtue is a 'habitus' (expression) of freedom" he continued.

"If we are free in every act, and each time we are called to choose between good and evil, virtue is that which allows us to have a habit toward the right choice."

Cultivate virtue

The pope encouraged everyone to remember the lesson taught by ancient thinkers: "that virtue grows and can be cultivated".

For Christians developing virtue depends primarily on the grace of God, he added.

He said that by developing open-mindedness, good will and the wisdom to learn from mistakes, people can be guided toward a virtuous life.

This is possible even in the face of the "chaotic forces" of passion, emotion and instinct to which humanity is susceptible, he said.

Source

• NCR Online

"Today we still have a lot to do to promote women. There are still many areas where women continue to be discriminated against," said Gabriella Gambino, a professor of bioethics and undersecretary of the Vatican Department for Laity, Family and Life.

Gambino appeared at a press event on Wednesday (Feb. 28) in Rome to promote "Women in the Church: Builders of Humanity," a conference scheduled for March 7 and 8 at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

The conference will focus on the lives and legacies of 10 female saints, who despite the challenges of their times and cultures left a meaningful mark in the church.

Among better-known canonized women such as Mother Teresa and Elizabeth Ann Seton, the conference is examining the life of Sister Josephine Bakhita, the first Black woman to be made a saint, who championed victims of human trafficking.

The conference is meant "to put the lives of these women within the context of the concrete lives of men and women of our time," Gambino explained.

The conference is a collaboration by several Catholic institutions and universities along with foreign embassies to the Holy See, which are represented today by a record number of women ambassadors.

The 20 or so ambassadors are connected through an informal WhatsApp group created during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gambino holds to a different kind of feminism from the one many other women and even other academics espouse.

The mother of five believes that womanhood and motherhood are intrinsically tied and that men must be seen as needing support along with women. "In the church, this is called co-responsibility," she said.

Starting with Pope John Paul II and increasingly under Pope Francis, women have been acquiring more relevance in the church and currently hold many important Vatican offices.

Last October, at a summit of bishops and lay people at the Vatican to discuss the most pressing topics facing the church, the question of female roles was front and centre.

While some Catholic women propose that women be allowed to become priests or at least the lesser ordained order of deacon, others seek alternative ways to promote women in the church.

"It's about living out the baptismal vocation to the fullest," Gambino said, which entails "adopting within the church a new paradigm that is capable of understanding the female condition and can lead to the creation of roles for women in the church, especially at the local level, where they are often neglected."

"The issue is how to get men interested in addressing the question of female leadership," said Cristina Reyes, academic vice rector of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, across the Tiber River from the Vatican. "That seems like a real challenge to me," she said.

Changing the church culture toward women, the leaders of the conference seemed to recognize, was a slow process.

Of the academic institutions participating in the conference, including the Catholic University of Avila, the Pontifical Urbanian University, the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum and Pontifical Theological Faculty Teresianum, all within a few miles of St Peter's Basilica, few have women deans. But Lorella Congiunti, who teaches at the Pontifical Urbanian University, said a growing number of female professors and students are already changing the face of Catholic education.

"Governing or being a rector is not the most important thing," Congiunti said.

"What matters is working alongside the students. It's a fundamental relationship that is built into universities."

Congiunti said that just standing behind a desk and teaching the numerous students and priests, often from African countries, who come to learn at her university can have a lasting impact on how they will perceive women in the future.

"One time, a priest from Asia told me, ‘You are the first woman I see speaking about philosophy.' He probably came from a context where women don't study," said Congiunti. "This is very important."

• Claire Giangravé - Vatican Correspondent RNS. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

I count three Italians, one Spaniard, one Pole and one Canadian. No doubt every single one was a person of great faith. Indeed, one was martyred "in hatred of the faith."

What strikes me, though, is that every single one of these five Servants of God and one Blessed comes from the northern hemisphere, the Global North.

In fact, Servant of God Sebastian Gil Vilves is the one who comes from the furthest south, i.e. Palma de Mallorca in Spain, which lies at 39.6°N latitude, nearly halfway from the Equator to the North Pole!

Good news, however!

In December 2023, Pope Francis promulgated seven decrees concerning nine people of whom four were from the Global South, one from Guatemala and three from DR Congo.

But the three from the Congo were all missionary priests from France and Italy.

Moreover, five out of the nine were Italian!

Well, I don't doubt that Italy is full of saints and that so is the Global North as a whole!

And no doubt it's also true that, given that many churches of the Global South are still of fairly recent origin, it's going to take time for causes from those often poor regions to make their way through the processes for beatification and canonisation.

Still, in a synodal Church that professes to be "walking with the people" and "opting for the poor," surely it's time for the Holy See to make these processes more accessible to people from the Global South?

Pope Francis has often championed popular religiosity.

If saints exist not for themselves but for the rest of us, then a synodal Church needs more recognised saints from the Global South!

• Stefan Gigacz is an honorary postdoctoral associate at Yarra Theological Union and the University of Divinity as well as the secretary of the Australian Cardijn Institute.
• First published at Synodal Reflections. Republished with permission.

In the Episcopal Church in which I was raised, my knowledge was largely formed by stained-glass windows and a hymn that declared:

"One was a doctor, and one was a queen,/ And one was a shepherdess on the green:/ They were all of them saints of God, and I mean,/ God helping, to be one too."

The list of these occupations did not lead me to think that saints were the kind of people you might meet every day, despite the assurance of the closing verse that there were hundreds and thousands more where they came from:

"You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea/ in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea."

My parish church was named after St. Alban.

I don't recall ever being told anything about St. Alban, who I figured was some sort of notable English bishop.

Only much later did I learn that Alban was the first martyr of the English church, a prominent citizen who lived in Roman-occupied Britain sometime in the third century.

One day he gave shelter to a priest who was fleeing persecution. Although Alban was not a Christian, he was moved by the faith of his guest, and after several days he asked to be baptized.

As soldiers approached, Alban exchanged clothes with the priest and sent him on his way, so that when the soldiers arrived they seized Alban, mistaking him for the priest, and brought him before a judge.

After revealing his identity and declaring himself a Christian, Alban was condemned to accept the priest's fate — to be flogged and beheaded.

By the time I was in high school I longed to know that there were saints like that — maybe not the kind that you met in lanes or in shops or at tea, but who truly exemplified what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "the cost of discipleship."

Then one day, while perusing the shelves of my school library, I happened upon an old edition of The Little Flowers of St. Francis, a classic collection of legends about St. Francis of Assisi and his early followers.

As I skimmed over the contents of this little book, I was captivated by the picture of a man who tried faithfully, as the author put it, to be "conformed to Christ in all the acts of his life."

I read about how Francis kissed a leper and afterward abandoned the affluent life of his parents to live in poverty and serve the sick.

I read about how he tamed a savage wolf with his gentleness and how he crossed a battlefield of the Crusades to meet in friendship with the Sultan. I read about his ecstatic hymn of praise to "Brother Sun and Sister Moon."

Was a saint perhaps someone who reminded us of Jesus?

Even from a distance of many centuries, I experienced a sense of what had captivated so many of Francis' own contemporaries.

His example was not simply edifying but also deeply appealing. He exuded a spirit of freedom and joy. People wanted to be near him to discover for themselves the secret of his joy.

It was some years after my encounter with St. Francis' little flowers that I saw that vision put into practice—not in a Franciscan community, but while working alongside Dorothy Day at the Catholic Worker in New York City.

I had been going through some hard years of wondering what my life was for, and it felt as if the questions I was asking couldn't find their answers in college.

I had drifted away from church practice, feeling that in church I didn't seem to come across the kind of moral witness embodied, for instance, by young people who were going to jail in protest of the Vietnam War.

I had discovered Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy of consistent nonviolence, and it was in this spirit that I found my way to the Catholic Worker at the age of 19.

A famous picture of Dorothy being arrested in a protest with striking farmworkers in California struck me as an image of the Gospel in action.

Beyond that, I didn't know much about Dorothy Day, except that her commitment to nonviolence was rooted in a wider practice of service and solidarity with the poor. Continue reading

According to the Vatican report released last week, Pope John Paul II received warnings about McCarrick from Vatican officials and New York Cardinal John O'Connor in 1999.

Two years later, McCarrick was installed as archbishop of Washington, D.C.

John Paul was beatified in 2011, six years after his death, and was made a saint three years later.

It's not just popes: The church needs more time to examine any person's life.

The people of Argentina, for example, wanted to canonise Eva Peron immediately after her death in 1952.

At the time, thankfully, the mandatory waiting period before the canonization process could begin was 50 years. Though she is still revered by many Argentines, Peron's reputation has been clouded in recent years by accusations that she and her husband harboured Nazis after World War II.

John Paul reduced the waiting period from 50 to five years because he wanted to canonise individuals who were still relevant to today's generation. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, waived even that for John Paul's canonization in response to popular demand.

As a result, when John Paul was canonised a mere nine years after his death, independent historians did not have access to the secret files of the Vatican, so it was impossible for outsiders to judge his cause.

As more information is disclosed, questions are raised about his actions.

Canonising popes is a special problem because their canonizations are more about ecclesial politics than sanctity.

Those pushing for sainthood are their fans who want their pope's legacy to be reinforced. It is a vote for continuity against change, as elevating a pope to sainthood makes it more difficult to question and reverse his policies.

Politically, it is difficult to oppose the canonization of a pope because opposition is portrayed as disloyalty. Those who openly or secretly oppose canonization are usually proponents of change.

As a compromise, two popes are sometimes made saints at once: Pope John XXIII was made a saint the same day John Paul was in April of 2104. Progressives liked John while conservatives liked John Paul.

The practice, meant to soothe friction between factions in the church, goes back to Pope Calixtus and Hippolytus (the first anti-pope) in the third century.

Legend has it that these opponents, whose supporters fought openly in the streets of Rome, reconciled after being sent to the Sardinian tin mines by the pagan Roman authorities.

Both were honoured as saints by the church of Rome in an effort to unify the church.

The joint canonization of John XXIII and John Paul II similarly brought together liberal and conservative factions who had been at odds since Vatican II, which was initiated by John.

I would not be surprised to see Popes Francis and Benedict canonised on the same day within 10 years of their deaths.

The politics of canonizing popes aside, saints are supposed to be models for Catholics and others to imitate.

How can anyone who is not pope really model him or herself after a pope — unless you are a cardinal who wants to be a pope?

My preferred candidates for canonization are laypeople, especially married couples and young people.

I would canonise the Rwandan students at Nyange Catholic Girls' School who were beaten and killed by Hutu militants in 1997 when they refused to separate into Hutu and Tutsi groups.

Their witness against genocide and for solidarity would mean more to young people than any pope.

Were these young women perfect?

Not likely, but they don't need to be: Saints are not perfect; they are also sinners.

We need to remember that St Peter denied he knew Jesus.

But when scandals like McCarrick's become known, it makes people question the whole system. Which isn't always a bad thing.

When Josemaría Escrivá, the controversial founder of Opus Dei, was canonised in 2002, a Jesuit wag responded, "Well, that just proves everyone goes to heaven."

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Teresa hi-jacked me in 1980. I wanted to go to Toledo but boarded the wrong bus and ended up in her convent in Avila.

That was a big beginning.

Ignatius and Teresa.

Now, in prayer, I have three more, a trio of saints who can't be excluded.

So that's a total of five. Five fingers pointing to the moon.

Do you have a collection of saints who come into your prayer?

Do you chat with them?

Do you find out what you and they have in common?

Of course, we don't worship the fingers that point to the moon, but when we engage with them, we learn a lot about ourselves and our own journey.

What do my handful 0f Saints have in common with each other?

They were not afraid to be human, and they were devoted disciples of Christ Jesus.

Ignatius was an impulsive man who learned through trial and error. His reward was the gift of discernment which he passed on to us.

Teresa of Avila had the courage, but I suspect she was not easy to live with. She got angry when her Sisters sang out of tune, and once she told a Cardinal that he made spiritual progress like a hen with its feet tied together.

Ignatius and Teresa are Teachers in my life, their influence ongoing. I value their prayerfulness and wisdom.

And the other three?

They are all Do-ers who have been determined in their efforts to minister to the poor.

Damien of Molokai gave his life to a colony of lepers in a remote Hawaiian Island.

Fr Damien had to go to extreme lengths to raise money for these outcasts. Robert Louis Stevenson lacked understanding when he called Fr Damien a liar and a fraud.

In that time and place, people did not give willingly to lepers.

This also was the determination of Mother Teresa in her care for the sick and dying in Calcutta.

Some people didn't understand why she wanted to do this.

A Marist friend who heard Mother Teresa speak in Wellington was very impressed. He told her he was going to fly to Auckland to hear her again.

She said, "Go by train and give the money to the poor."

The third Do-er is New Zealand's own Suzanne Aubert who pushed a pram around Wellington streets to collect for the children in her care.

She showed the same determination.

Wellington businessmen often gave just to get rid of her.

So there they are the handful of Saints who are close to my heart and my conscience.

Two Teachers and three Do-ers, all ardent disciples of Jesus.

What is your group of Saints? How do they impact your life?

As far as mine are concerned, I know I will always need teaching.

But, please God, let me also be a Do-er.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Many of us know that many Catholic artists, such as Audrey Assad, have written songs inspired by saints. Saints and religious were a popular subject for classical composers but did you all know that even secular artists (some who aren't even Catholic!) have written songs for or inspired by saints? Continue reading

That's my idea.

It's pretty simple: Just stop making every pope a saint. Instead of canonizing Paul VI this year, as you are reportedly planning to do, I suggest…not doing that.

As you know, in 2014, a year after you became pope (and not even ten years after the death of John Paul II), you canonized Popes John XIII and John Paul II on the very same day.

And now I read in the paper that Paul VI is on the docket for 2018, and my first response is to joke, "Who's next, St. John Paul I?"

But it turns out I can't make that joke, because you officially recognized John Paul I as "Venerable" just a few months ago.

Is it possible you're getting a little carried away?

It's not that I have anything against these men as individuals.

Who am I to judge?

It's just that it seems like a pretty big coincidence for all of the popes since Pius XII—ahem, Venerable Pius XII—to have been men of uncommon heroic virtue.

You must agree that, in theory, a non-saintly person could become pope.

I will go so far as to say that it has happened before.

So, if the modern church really has managed to elect an unbroken string of papal saints in the past century, well, that's impressive, but considering that the pope is the one who gets to make that call, it's also a bit...suspect.

Catholic Hall of Fame

The thing about popes is that they are already in the Catholic hall of fame.

They are prayed for by name at every single Mass while they are alive.

When they die, they are buried in the crypt beneath St. Peter's.

Their writings are hosted on the Vatican website.

The faithful can venerate them very easily whenever they are so moved.

Making past popes saints and giving them feast days feels like gilding the lily. And you, Pope Francis, are not usually a lily-gilder. Continue reading

In his homily, Francis referred to the Christian life as a "love story with God" and said "The Saints who were canonised today and especially the many martyrs, point the way." Read more

He came across a group of heathenish Picts who were busy burying a friend who had been attacked by an enormous "water beast" while swimming in the river. Continue reading . (you need to scroll down for the story)

I detected just the faintest whiff of scandal in the air - nothing said, but plenty implied.

I quipped: "Isn't that great."

Faces turned, eyes probing. "

Isn't it great that she is keeping the baby? Most girls and their families would have organised an abortion."

These days, any single mother who decides to keep her baby is a heroine … even a saint.

Ironically, for those who identify as Catholic, greater courage may be required if they find themselves fighting not only a prevailing negative cultural attitude but, sadly, the critical judgements of the very community that should provide unquestioning, unconditional support.

These judgements are no less damaging for being non-verbal.

Consider the story of Katrina who, at 19, found herself unexpectedly pregnant.

"To say this news was unexpected would be an understatement.

"I went into shock … Mark cried ... To us, this was a disaster.

"Everything we had planned, everything we were working towards was shattered ...

"We knew our parents would be severely disappointed and that mine might actually disown me.

"We were both from religious families and most of our friends were religious - WE were religious.

"We felt that all our friends were likely to judge or even not be our friends anymore.

"We didn't know what to do. Keeping the baby would mean potential ostracism from our friends and Church community. Not having the baby would mean going through with a termination, but escaping all the shame and our lives trotting on as planned ..."

As Catholics, we need to honestly ask: ‘How many young single Catholic women and their partners and/or families would feel like Katrina did about her faith community - whether parish or school?' Continue reading

• Dr John Kleinsman is the director of The Nathaniel Centre.

Granted, the number of child saints is a small percentage of the 10,000 saints and blesseds recognized by the Church.

Still, at more than 400 souls, the number of known saintly children is substantial. This figure includes "Servants of God," "Venerables," "Blesseds" and saints.

It encompasses both those who lived truly heroic lives and those counted as martyrs simply because their parents held them at the moment of martyrdom.

According to an analysis by the Register using the most readily available sources, there are 429 children and youth — including teenagers — who can roughly be called sanctus, Latin for "holy," from which we get our word "saint." This list includes 210 Servants of God, 15 Venerables, 84 beati and 120 saints.

This does not include the Holy Innocents, because we can't know how many children were in that group.

It does include, however, the 110 children martyred during the French Revolution, who are all counted as Servants of God.

Roughly 40% of the saints are female. The sex of one beatified child is unknown because the infant underwent martyrdom (technically, death in odium fidei, that is, in hatred of the faith) inside its mother's womb just days before the expected delivery, along with six siblings.

Indeed, were it not for martyrdom, we would have very few child saints. Of course, in the early Church, there were martyr saints such as Tarcisius, Agatha, Agnes and Faith.

Even then, however, children accounted for just a few handfuls of saintly souls. And between 400-1499, the Church gained at most three child saints per century.

Starting in the 1500s, however, the number of child saints rose sharply, mostly due to martyrdom. Continue reading

Sources

• National Catholic Register article by Brian O'Neel, who writes from Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
• Image: Catholic News Agency

While while they all share the same name and love for God, each of the each of the Catherine's (or Katharine's) path to holiness is unique. Check out their stories

Their research, if you like, has led them unblinkingly to conclude that reality is not at all what, or where, or who we think it is.

They have penetrated the everyday atomic buzz and seen into the essential structures. They have seen, among other things, that the world is hollowed-out and illumined by beams of divine love, that the first shall be last and the last shall be first, and that sanctity—should you desire it—is merely to live in accordance with these elementary facts.

Whether or not the Catholic Church makes it official—and the cause for her canonization rumbles on—Dorothy Day was most definitely a saint. Is a saint, because her holiness has suffered no decrease in vitality since her death, at age 83, in 1980, and her example, her American example, is more challenging and provocative today than it ever was.

Day was about people, especially poor people, especially those whom she called with some wryness "the undeserving poor," and the paramount importance of serving them. For her, what the Church defines as Works of Mercy—feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, sheltering the homeless, and so on—were not pious injunctions or formulas for altruism but physical principles, as inevitable as the first law of thermodynamics.

Pare her right down to her pith, strip away all her history and biography, and what do you get? A fierce set of cheekbones and a command to love. That's the legacy of Dorothy Day, and it is endless.

Her history and biography, nevertheless, are intensely interesting, particularly as revisited by her granddaughter Kate Hennessy in Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty.

What a story. Although the chronology, and even the spiritual progress (so far as we presume to discern it) are straightforward—from bohemianism to radicalism to motherhood to Catholicism to a life, a mission, of purely focused sacrifice and activism—the images are kaleidoscopic.

There's Greenwich Village Dorothy, cub reporter, in the teens of the 20th century: "cool-mannered, tweed-wearing, drinking rye whiskey straight with no discernible effect." She's with her buddy Eugene O'Neill—the Eugene O'Neill—in a bar called the Hell Hole.

O'Neill, with "bitter mouth" and "monotonous grating voice," is reciting one of his favorite poems, Francis Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven": I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; / I fled Him, down the arches of the years. By way of response, Dorothy sings "Frankie and Johnny." Continue reading

Source and Image:

• Article by James Parker, a contributing editor at The Atlantic.

This coming October 7 is the 25th anniversary of the death of an amazing young adult Christian believer, Blessed Chiara Luce Badano.

While perhaps not yet one of the "big saints" known by most Catholics, Chiara's story is inspiring to many and it's worth recalling as her popularity is rapidly growing, especially among young adult Catholics.

When the young woman was beatified on September 25, 2010, she became the first member of Generation X to be raised to such heights in the Catholic Church.

Who was this saintly young woman? Why is she becoming so renowned among young adults?

Some background might help. Early in their marriage, Chiara's parents were told that they could not have children. Despite the bad news, her parents prayed for a child for eleven years.

When they conceived, they saw their child as an answered prayer and a grace given directly from God. In reference to this gift of divine providence, the couple named their daughter Chiara, meaning "light," since her conception was an illumination to them of God's goodness and kindness.

Throughout her life, the future Blessed always sought to live up to her name and display a strong witness to the light that is given by faith and virtue. With that said, however, Chiara was a regular child.

As a teenager, she enjoyed fixing her hair, being in the outdoors, spending time in coffee shops, listening to music, hanging out with friends, going on dates, as well as swimming and playing tennis.

Chiara had an adventurous spirit, which made her think of one day becoming a flight attendant. But Chiara also had struggles. She had a hard time with studies, and even failed her first year of high school. She was also sometimes mocked for her faith or made fun of because of her piety. Continue reading

Sources

• Crux article by Father Jeffrey F. Kirby, a Crux contributor
• Image: Parishes of Sassello

Pope Francis has approved revised norms to ensure transparency.

Historical and scientific accuracy are also important factors.

The Congregation of Saints Causes must have at least six medical experts on a Consultation Team panel.

Two-thirds of the team must approve a statement declaring a healing has no natural or scientific explanation.

In the past the declaration had to be approved by a majority of the consultation team members.

The team's approval was a key step before the Pope could recognise a miracle.

He could then attribute it to the intercession of a candidate for sainthood.

"The ... regulation is for the good of the (saints') causes, which can never be separated from the historical and scientific truth of the alleged miracles," Archbishop Marcello Bartolucci, secretary of the congregation, said

Bartolucci led a seven-member commission that began revising the regulations last year.

The aim was to update the norms established by St. John Paul II in 1983.

Apart from martyrs, two miracles are usually needed for a person to be declared a saint.

One is for beatification and the second for canonization.

The new regulations also change the number of times an alleged miracle can be examined.

They now say it "cannot be re-examined more than three times."

A Medical Consultation team with up to seven experts examines the miracles.

If the promoter of a cause appeals a negative judgment, a new Medical Consultation team is appointed.

The Consultation team members must be are unknown to the postulator.

The promotor of the specific cause is the postulator.

A presumed miracle is first reviewed by two medical experts within the congregation.

Then with their recommendation it is then sent to the Medical Consultation team.

Source

• Catholic Register
• Image:www.godisreal.today

He was preaching at a Mass to celebrate the canonisation of St Teresa of Kolkata.

"The world has been inspired by Mother Teresa's work, her energy and commitment to care for the poor."

Dew noted that it is seventy years on 10^th September 1946, that the woman we now know as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, was on a train:

"She was going back to her teaching job in Darjeeling, when she heard 'a call within a call'

"She was already a professed Loreto sister, but on that train 70 years ago today she heard God calling her to do something to take care of the poorest of the poor."

Writing about that incident many years later Mother Teresa wrote "The message was quite clear, it was an order - He wanted me to love him in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor."

"She didn't do it to become a saint, it was her response to the call of Jesus to live His Gospel. This meant giving up her life as a Loreto sister and founding the Missionaries of Charity."
Source

• Supplied