Credibility of saints

[filmmaker]

Ok here’s what I’m really annoyed about. St Christopher, does he exist? Some sources say he didn’t, so was I praying to someone who didn’t exist? If so, why the heck the would the church promote a non-existent person as a saint.
There’s also a person named St. Genesius, the patron saint of actors, but I read that he might not even exist and that he made be the westernised version of some other saint with a similiar name.
What’s going on here?! I’m now really hesitant to pray to early saints because there’s hardly any information about them, let alone whether they existed or not.
I’m only feeling ok with praying to someone like St. Padre Pio, who has been proven to to have perfromed many unexplainable miracles but during and after his life on earth.
Which brings up another query I have, in the advanced scientific age we are in no, to prove the miracles of saints we use science to determine the validility and credibility of the miracles performed, then we announce saints. What about people who declared saints in the middle ages? They didn’t have the convincing, rational means to delcare someone a saint, presumable they would gather testomines as witness to that person’s saintliness, but they wouldn’t know for sure would they?
St Francis of Asissi for example, one of my favourite saints of course, but he was declared a saint two years after he died.
With other saints who have been declared saints so quickly, what if the miracles they performed could be explained with the science we have today?
Which begs me to ask another question, if science should be used to discover to see if one were a saint, if one were not a saint, would their title as a saint be taken away?
Thanks for your patience to read this, God bless you

 

[Jaypeeto4]

All of the Saints existed, including Christopher, Philomena, George, Margaret of Antioch, Catherine of Alexandria, Barbara.
That being said, over the centuries it is true that a lot of legends became associated with some of the early Saints, so that sometimes it’s hard to separate fact from fiction.

God bless,
Jaypeeto4 (aka Jaypeeto3)

 

[Victorious]

…in the advanced scientific age we are in no, to prove the miracles of saints we use science to determine the validility and credibility of the miracles performed, then we announce saints. What about people who declared saints in the middle ages? They didn’t have the convincing, rational means to delcare someone a saint, presumable they would gather testomines as witness to that person’s saintliness, but they wouldn’t know for sure would they?..if science should be used to discover to see if one were a saint, if one were not a saint, would their title as a saint be taken away?

I kind of lean toward not worrying about these sorts of things. I rather suspect that God has a way of weeding fake saints out of our memories over time.

Incidentally, even with the canonization of saints now reserved exclusively to the Holy See, and with all the procedures and norms regarding causes for sainthood, not all saints have miracles. For example, the canonization of St. Thomas More in 1935 was not based on miracles. True martyrs do not need miracles to be canonized, and St. Thomas More unquestionably laid down his life for the Church.

 

[MyPhilomena]

so did Maximillian Kolbe as well. I do not know if there are reported miracles of his, but as far as I know, there are none.

As for Saint Philomena, the bones and vials found are hers.
There is no proof that it isn’t hers, and there is no proof that
the inscription, pax tecum filumena did not belong to her tomb.

I will be chosing her for my patron saint regardless of the skepticism that exists around her.

 

[Etruschi]

Saint Christopher does absolutely exist! Any and all of the Saints that were proclaimed by the Church from the time of Jesus to 2008to exist, in fact exist. There seems to be much confusion with Western Catholics regarding the reformation of the Calendarium Romanorum. Saints were removed from the Calendarium for a practical purpose, to make way for more recently Canonized Saints that had tangible historical records, and were not removed as an implication of doctrinal alternation, or with the purpose of abolishing Their Feast Days or surpressing Their Devotions and Cults. Therein, if the Church proclaimed one to be a Saint, even just once mentioning it, say the day after Christ’s Ascension for example, then that Individual is as much a Saint as a Holy Person Sainted by Pope Benedict XVI.

 

[thistle]

Saint Christopher does absolutely exist! Any and all of the Saints that were proclaimed by the Church from the time of Jesus to 2008to exist, in fact exist. There seems to be much confusion with Western Catholics regarding the reformation of the Calendarium Romanorum. Saints were removed from the Calendarium for a practical purpose, to make way for more recently Canonized Saints that had tangible historical records, and were not removed as an implication of doctrinal alternation, or with the purpose of abolishing Their Feast Days or surpressing Their Devotions and Cults. Therein, if the Church proclaimed one to be a Saint, even just once mentioning it, say the day after Christ’s Ascension for example, then that Individual is as much a Saint as a Holy Person Sainted by Pope Benedict XVI.

It depends what you mean by the Church proclaiming saints. The canonization of saints (i.e. infallible declaration that someone is a saint) is only about 1000 years old. Prior to that it was members of the faithful (the laity) who proclaimed someone to be a saint and the local bishops would then decide to allow or not a devotion to the one proclaimed a saint by the public.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Furthermore, the ‘removal’ of certain saints within the last generation was done for a two-fold purpose:

1. As another poster noted, while each of those saints existed, there had indeed grown up a lot of ‘unproven’ legends regarding each of them, and it was (supposedly) confusing to people to be told, “Yes, St. Christopher exists but it is fairly certain now that he did NOT do X, Y, and Z that everybody THINKS he did”.

(As a sideline, and my **personal opinion ** here, this is an example of the mid 20th century educational ‘experiment’ which ‘dumbed everything down’ to the most ‘basic’ understanding. It was believed that ‘most’ people would not be intelligent enough to be able to ‘comprehend’ the ‘advanced’ ideas of everything from language to mathematics to science, and so the ‘ones in charge’ everywhere either ‘restated’ concepts such that 'a sixth grader could understand, as this is the ‘average’ adult’s understanding", or ‘dropped’ concepts entirely. But I digress.)

1. There was also, in this ‘watershed era’, a sense that the majority of saints were ‘lacking in diversity.’ I mean, they were mostly dead white European males. Horrors! And thus, we have had added (most praiseworthily, make no mistake, I am not by any means belittling any saint) in the last 40 years many more women, people of color, and ‘ethnic’ saints.

Finally, do not think that because St. Christopher’s feast day was ‘removed’ that he is ‘no longer a saint’. . .nor even that his feast will not be reinstated at some point.

St. Catherine of Alexandra (feast November 25) was ‘removed’ 40 years ago (for the ‘legends’ reason) but within the last year her feast has been restored to the calendar as further studies have enabled scholars to ‘detangle’ the plethora of legends and to correctly assess her, give the proper facts, etc. Many of us still had a devotion to her as a patron saint or name saint and this probably was a factor. I would not be surprised if St. Christopher’s feast was not restored within the next 5 years or so as well along with others as it seems that some of the ‘hierarchy’ have become aware that instead of dumbing down or sweeping aside our treasury of Catholic saints and practices lest they ‘confuse the people’, they should rather be EDUCATING MORE, and OFFERING MORE, to 'INSPIRE the people."

 

[Etruschi]

It depends what you mean by the Church proclaiming saints. The canonization of saints (i.e. infallible declaration that someone is a saint) is only about 1000 years old. Prior to that it was members of the faithful (the laity) who proclaimed someone to be a saint and the local bishops would then decide to allow or not a devotion to the one proclaimed a saint by the public.

Yes that is correct of course. By “proclaiming Saints” I did mean those accepted and endorsed by the ecclesiastical hierarchy not merely by the common Christian congregations. As in the ancient Christian Church, today many persons of the Universal Church from around world the hold steadfast to the idea of various people being “Saints,” but just because they whom say this are members of the Roman Church by no means makes their Sanctoral proclamation “Infallible.” Vast quantities of Canonized Saints are registered “Pre-Congregation” as you speak of, Those that were Sainted prior to the “Veneration, Beatification, Canonization Proceedure.” This proceedure made this process much more efficient and credible. However, those Holy Persons that were Canonized, not my popular opinion but by the official ecclesial decree, are the same manner of “Infallible” as any Holy Person Sainted since the implementation of the above described proceedure, therein this does indicate that Saint Christopher, etc., are “Infallible” Saints.

 

[rpp]

Furthermore, the ‘removal’ of certain saints within the last generation was done for a two-fold purpose:

1. As another poster noted, while each of those saints existed, there had indeed grown up a lot of ‘unproven’ legends regarding each of them, and it was (supposedly) confusing to people to be told, “Yes, St. Christopher exists but it is fairly certain now that he did NOT do X, Y, and Z that everybody THINKS he did”.

(As a sideline, and my **personal opinion ** here, this is an example of the mid 20th century educational ‘experiment’ which ‘dumbed everything down’ to the most ‘basic’ understanding. It was believed that ‘most’ people would not be intelligent enough to be able to ‘comprehend’ the ‘advanced’ ideas of everything from language to mathematics to science, and so the ‘ones in charge’ everywhere either ‘restated’ concepts such that 'a sixth grader could understand, as this is the ‘average’ adult’s understanding", or ‘dropped’ concepts entirely. But I digress.)

1. There was also, in this ‘watershed era’, a sense that the majority of saints were ‘lacking in diversity.’ I mean, they were mostly dead white European males. Horrors! And thus, we have had added (most praiseworthily, make no mistake, I am not by any means belittling any saint) in the last 40 years many more women, people of color, and ‘ethnic’ saints.

Finally, do not think that because St. Christopher’s feast day was ‘removed’ that he is ‘no longer a saint’. . .nor even that his feast will not be reinstated at some point.

St. Catherine of Alexandra (feast November 25) was ‘removed’ 40 years ago (for the ‘legends’ reason) but within the last year her feast has been restored to the calendar as further studies have enabled scholars to ‘detangle’ the plethora of legends and to correctly assess her, give the proper facts, etc. Many of us still had a devotion to her as a patron saint or name saint and this probably was a factor. I would not be surprised if St. Christopher’s feast was not restored within the next 5 years or so as well along with others as it seems that some of the ‘hierarchy’ have become aware that instead of dumbing down or sweeping aside our treasury of Catholic saints and practices lest they ‘confuse the people’, they should rather be EDUCATING MORE, and OFFERING MORE, to 'INSPIRE the people."

Great post!

(Especially the education thing! Totally dead on.)

 

[SienaFriend]

I love the saints!! I’m glad there are such knowledge folks here to edify us all. I want to mention that anyone and everyone in heaven is a saint…cool HUH? The church does it’s best to give us individuals to intercede for us in heaven and it’s a tough job to become a saint according to the church, but we are all called to be saints. I cringe when I heard people say, I’m no saint and have no intention of being one. I believe whole heartedly that Our Mother Mary and Jesus have called in their holy troops to come to our aid, I kind of like to think of it as “an invasion of saints” I believe that with a new springtime of the Holy Spirit along with that comes the saints! Like Mary is our model the saints are ours, many people are converted and repented by reading the lives of saints. Even the “Legends” feed our souls, as anything is indeed possible with God, so it becomes easier to believe that even some of the long tales could actually happen. Christ said we would do even greater things than He…always baffles my mind, and don’t ask me to quote chapter and verse I’m the worst. Just as the saints are patrons of certain things, these things have something to do with their lives, something that they were good at, or bad at or struggled with. So it does no harm to call on our loved ones etc. to intercede for us if we think that perhaps they are very sympathetic with our problem, or familiar with it. That’s what I love about it all, there is always someone who has suffered as we have, even if we don’t know the name, we can even call on saints in heaven who have had a problem like ours to come to our aid. Good thread!!

 

[Etruschi]

Thank you for your responding. I have always been somewhat confused with the Sanctoral Cult however. Perhaps you can help me with this? What I was confused on is, okay, naturally everyone in Heaven is a “saint,” this is true, but aren’t the Canonized “Saints” of a different and higher Hierarchial Order than the other “saints,” or spirits, residing in Heaven? Don’t they rank below the Angels but above the “saints,” spirits in Heaven? Saint Joseph is obviously incredibly superior on the Hierarchial scale to a saved human soul now in Heaven. Aren’t the “Saints” mightier in efficacy and power to the normative “saints,” just as the Angels are superior to the “Saints” and Mary is superior to the Angels, and the Holy Trinity is infinately superior to Mary?

 

[Etruschi]

I kind of lean toward not worrying about these sorts of things. I rather suspect that God has a way of weeding fake saints out of our memories over time.

Incidentally, even with the canonization of saints now reserved exclusively to the Holy See, and with all the procedures and norms regarding causes for sainthood, not all saints have miracles. For example, the canonization of St. Thomas More in 1935 was not based on miracles. True martyrs do not need miracles to be canonized, and St. Thomas More unquestionably laid down his life for the Church.

Looks like Winston Churchill on the pic don’t it?

 

[SienaFriend]

I was looking through my catachism and I can’t find anything that states those canonized saints hold a higher place specifically. If you don’t have a hard copy of the catacism you can find it online.

I know as you said, Mary is Queen above all other souls. I don’t think the church would presume to “know” the placement of any other than Mary, having been born free of sin, full of grace etc. She is the only human to have been created and maintained her purity. Adam and Eve had it and lost it. Which baffles me also, because…if they were born free from sin, full of grace…(which I think? was the case for them, maybe not???) But if they were blessed with even such an enormous amount of grace, it seems to me it would have made them alot stronger against the occasion of sinning etc. Shows how good the devil is at his chosen career. I thought I read that Adam and Eve are believed to be in heaven. That when Christ died and descended to the dead that they would have been given the opportunity…but maybe I’m wrong.

I know when the mother of the two apostles wanted thier seats guaranteed Jesus said only his Father knew. The last shall be first and first shall be last. So that indicates something of levels or placement, but I don’t find anything in catachism about canonized verses sainted in heaven. But would make sense as a reward or maybe like having qualifications for the job, God will give us jobs in heaven in addition to adoration of Him with the angels etc. Not sure we are going to be all that picky when we get there.
There’s a mansion and room made just for each of us.

I just know God as Mercy itself is unfathomable, so it would have meant that Adam and Eve again turned away from God/Jesus…I doubt that personally.

Back to the levels of heaven and “seating” assignments…if anyone finds anything on it, post it please, I can’t find anything. …

We are called to be perfect, we will be cleaned up and white as snow in purgatory and I would assume all equally clean. Different gifts are distributed to us on earth and so perhaps and likely in heaven too.

In regards to how much differently the beatific/intensity of vision of God will be for each I’m not sure if that might but not be different/considered a level. I know I pray sometimes, just let me at least be able to get in the gate and I will be glad to stand on my tippy toes.

On earth the saints had attained virtue and grace and able to lets say “hold” more of the Whole. By emptying themselves they made room. Where others just hadn’t attained that ability or gift here on earth, I wouldn’t think that anyone should feel a “lack of” anything in heaven. Perhaps this would be a sort of level. I guess I will just have to wait and see… I think there will be a difference in the New Heaven as on the New Earth. I have never heard much on The New Heaven and New Earth…that’s a whole other mind boggeler.