Wednesday 1 November 2023

Today Is...All Saints' Day

Some Saints are so well known that everybody knows what day is theirs but as there are more than 10,000 saints recognised by the Roman Catholic Church,others are not quite so well known so to make sure that they don't miss out on a Feast Day, the Church just pile them all together into All Saint's Day but as the Catholic's have almost as many Saints as they have scandals, you would think it would be quite simple to become one so whats the process involved?
Pope Francis did like a good old Sainting and went on a Sainthood rampage one weekend, handing out halo's to 813 people who could now go marching in along with all the other Saints so having a Pope under the funny hat who is not averse to shaking the Rosary at people is a decent start but the main criteria is you must be dead as sainthood is only recognised after your death and once you are pushing up the daisies.
The Vatican start the Saintly ball rolling and they look if during life you were a devoted Christian, ideally Catholic so if you're not Christened yet, get Christened as a Catholic. If you're a Jew, Muslim or part of another religion, join the Catholic Church and then die.
Now that you are Catholic and dead, there will be an investigation by a 'postulator' to check if you led a selfless, pure, benevolent, virtuous, kind and devout life and performed at least two, verifiable miracles. The healing of an incurable illness or walking on water, that sort of thing.
If you pass muster on this front, a panel of theologians and the cardinals of the Congregation for Cause of Saints evaluate the candidate's life. If the panel approves, the Pope proclaims that the candidate is a suitable role model of Catholic virtues and a third, posthumous miracle is searched for and if found, bingo, your in the Saint's Club and parts of your body get carted around Churches for Catholics to gawk at and you may get a feast day in your honour.
Of course two miracles when you are alive and one after death may be a bit hard to achieve so the resourceful Catholics have designed a few shortcuts that miss one out the three miracles.
Martyrs who died for their religious cause can be beatified without evidence of a living miracle, they just need two posthumous miracles but the bar is set quite low for posthumous miracles, for example if someone has something nasty and they pray to you and it clears up, that's a miracle attributed to you. Congratulations.
Another shortcut is for your body to not undergo the usual unpleasant changes after you die which the Catholic Church take a sign that you were of the purest faith, or incorruptible, and you are just those two posthumous miracles away from being Sainted and being the Patron Saint of slugs or something because all the best things to be Patron Saint of have already gone.
It won't be venereal disease or hemorrhoids though, lucky St. Fiacre has already nabbed both of those.

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