Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

Canonized w. three others today by B XVI:

VATICAN CITY – A French nun who provided education to pioneers on the American frontier and a Mexican bishop who fought anti-clerical policies in the 1920s were among four new saints named by the pope Sunday.

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Also included in the new roll call of saints named by Pope Benedict XVI were two Italians: a nun who advocated public schooling for girls in late 17th century Italy and a priest who was a trailblazer for education of the deaf.

“The Church rejoices in the four new saints,” Benedict told a crowd of several thousand people at the ceremony in St. Peter’s Square. “May their example inspire us and their prayers obtain for us guidance and courage.”

Ailing Chicago Cardinal Francis George was among those celebrating mass on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. He and other Americans were there to honor Mother Theodore Guerin, one of the new saints, who established St. Mary-of-the-Woods College for women in Indiana in 1841.

Despite decades of poor health, Guerin, who was born in 1798, set out with a handful of fellow French nuns for Indiana, where they founded a simple log-cabin chapel. For years, she resisted a local bishop’s opposition to her plans to establish a local community of nuns.

“Mother Theodore overcame many challenges and persevered in the work that the Lord has called her to do,” the pope said in his homily.

Phil McCord, the American whose restored vision was judged by the Vatican to be the miracle necessary for Guerin’s sainthood, called the ceremony “overwhelming.”

McCord, a 60-year-old engineer who manages the campus of Guerin’s order, recalled how he had faced a corneal transplant after damage from cataract surgery. He entered the chapel at the college, asked Guerin for help and his eyesight started to improve the next morning, said McCord, the son of a lay Baptist minister.

Members of Guerin’s order, the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, also attended to the ceremony. “I’ve been praying for this since I was in the third grade,” said Sister Estelle Scully. “And now I’m 80.”

Also named a saint was Mexican Bishop Rafael Guizar Valencia, who risked his life to tend to the wounded during the Mexican revolution — sometimes disguised as a street vendor or a musician.

In 1921, he renovated a seminary in Jalapa, Mexico, but the government later seized the building. He succeeded in having the seminary operate clandestinely for 15 years in Mexico City. He died in 1938.

Benedict hailed Guizar Valencia for working tirelessly, even facing persecution, to ensure that seminarians were properly educated “according to the heart of Christ.”

At least 25,000 people paraded past the remains of Guizar Valencia all night Saturday and into Sunday in Jalapa, the capital of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

“We hope that (the canonization) will help people believe more easily in this Mexican saint,” said Isidro Quechuleno, a Jalapa farmer. “We really feel like he’s ours and he’s part of our religiosity.”

Guizar Valencia was a great uncle of the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ order of priests whom the Vatican restricted from public ministry this year amid allegations Degollado sexually abused seminarians.

Filippo Smaldone, an Italian priest who lived from 1848-1923, gained sainthood for his education and assistance for the deaf. He also founded an order of nuns, the Congregation of the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Hearts.

Rosa Venerini, who died in 1728, gained sainthood for founding the Congregation of the Holy Venerini Teachers and pushing to establish the first public schools for girls in Italy.

Sunday marked Benedict’s first canonization ceremony in nearly a year.

His predecessor, John Paul II, led several canonization and beatification ceremonies yearly, but Benedict has taken a less visible approach. Ceremonies for beatification, the last formal step before sainthood, are now led by local prelates in the country where the candidate lived or worked.

But Benedict has championed the call for John Paul’s sainthood.

A few weeks after John Paul’s April 2, 2005, death, Benedict announced that he was putting John Paul on the fast track for possible sainthood by waiving the traditional five-year waiting period before the process can begin.

Over at Immaculate Direction (http://immaculatedirection.blogspot.com/), Cubeland Mystic has exactly what I was going to say re: Rod’s recent switch to Orthodoxy. But he says it better than I can. So read his if you want to know how I feel.

Update: OK, so maybe I do need to add my two cents, even though Immaculate Direction says it so well.

One of Rod’s major reasons for leaving the Church (at least that he states) was the priest sax scandal. All right, true confessions here. That really hasn’t had much of an effect on my faith. Sure, it is horrible to think about? Yes. But I guess I’ve always thought of priests as human, no better or worse than anyone else. Even though they are priests, and that puts them to a higher standard of behavior, I wasn’t really surprised, in part because they’re human and in part because of what I’ve read about the seminary culture during which these priests underwent their formantion (e.g., Michael Rose’s book, Goodbye, Good Men ). It was not the ‘best of times’ in the seminary. That is not an excuse, but since i’ve read about it, I can’t say I’m surprised by what’s happened. Also I’ve seen this movement as something with which church reformers have taken like a puppy to a chew toy and just won’t let go of, saying it’s a sign of all this trouble in the Church and using it to bring up marriage and women priests and all that crap that does not belong . I just don’t really understand how all of this could so shake your faith that you would want to leave the Church. Unless your faith just wasn’t that strong or deep-rooted to begin with. Maybe Rod just wasn’t really convinced that the Catholic Church has all the truth, I don’t know. but I do know that Orthodoxy sure doesn’t. The history of Orthodoxy is rife with political drama, and caesaropapaism (one of the major reasons for the schism, if not the major reason) is something I would have issue with. Essentially, it’s who is more important? Church or State? Orthodsoxy says head of state. Rome says Pope. But this is an old argument that I’m not really educated enough on the specifics to get into here.

I am disappointed that the church scandal was such a problem from Rod that he converted. It also seems like the aesthetics of Orthodoxy appealed more to him. Well, yes, I’d like to have beautiful churches and perfect music and all that. But I think we can reform Catholic liturgy much more effectively from the inside than from saying, “I give up!” This isn’t like big matters of doctrine. If you’re pro-choice, or think women should be priests, then you need to go somewhere else because the Church ain’t budging. But if it’s stuff like music and the Mass, then we can change that. B XVI himself wants to change it. Let’s see where these reforms go, especially with th enew translation due in a few years.

OK wow this was more than I thought I’d write. But it is disheartening because so much of what he writes in Crunchy Cons is based on Catholicism or the idea of Truth that is found in Catholicism. I was excited when I read his book, partially because he was Catholic. It sounded like this was something I could do. And I am still trying (I went to Trader Joe’s today!), but I am a bit disheartened. Nonetheless, I will pray for Rod and his family, like he asked us to on his website.