First canonized saint to have an abortion?

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Diaconia said:
Study this impressive man - Alessandro Serenelli . He murdered St. Maria Goretti, and after rehabilitation in prison became a Capuchin friar and was canonized himself.
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Based on what I have read (article here, and another article hereSerenelli did indeed become a Capuchin lay brother after serving nearly 30 years in prison for Maria’s murder. Websites such as Aleteia have proposed him as an intercessor for those who use porn and suggested that one day he might have a sainthood cause. However, as of 2019, he does not have any sort of open sainthood cause, and therefore is not even a Servant of God, much less a canonized saint. Of course one can still privately ask for his intercession, and it is possible that he may have such a cause in the future, though it would probably be up to the Capuchins whether they wanted to pursue sainthood for him.

Nevertheless we do have quite a few murderer saints, including
St. Paul (formerly Saul)
St. Julian the Hospitaller (allegedly killed his own parents thinking they were his wife and her lover; patron saint of murderers)
St. Olga of Kiev (a ruler who committed mass murders)
St. Vladimir of Kiev (Olga’s grandson who killed his own brother in order to seize power from him)
St. Moses the Black (leader of a gang of violent robbers, strongly suspected of murder)

In addition there is a French murderer, Jacques Fesch, who was executed for killing a police officer in 1957 but converted in prison while on death row, who reportedly does have an open sainthood cause since the early 1990s.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
His mother St. Monica did, though, and overcame it and became a saint.
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Hey, speaking of drink…

Don’t forget Ireland’s St. Brigid - believed to have been an expert dairywoman and brewer - reputed to have turned water into beer. (In an Irish pub, Brigid is more synonymous with beer than Budweiser!) 🍺

From a poem attributed to her we read:

"“I’d like to give a lake of beer to God.
I’d love the heavenly
Host to be tippling there
For all eternity …

“I’d sit with the men, the women and God
There by the lake of beer.
We’d be drinking good health forever
And every drop would be a prayer.”

Sounds like Brigit didn’t overcome it?! 🙂

+1 for prayers with your brewski!! 😀
 
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Has there been any miracles concerning Dorothy Day?? Just b/c someone made a mark in society w or w/o an abortion, doesn’t mean she’s a Saint. The abortion is a forgiven sin. How did Dorothy feel about it.? Did it overwhelm her w sadness. Did she accept her choice w regret? IDK. Miracles are important.
Blessings
 
Im sure it is not your intention, but I bet that this point will be used by those Catholics who are soft on abortion.

Dorothy Day’s abortion took place before her conversion. She fully repented and repudiated abortion and went on record:

“To me, birth control and abortion are genocide. I say, make room for children, don’t do away with them. I learned that prevention of conception when the act that one is performing is for the purpose of fusing the two lives more closely and so enrich them that another life springs forth and the aborting of a life conceived are sins that are great frustrations in the natural and spiritual order.”
 
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quies said:
Don’t forget Ireland’s St. Brigid - believed to have been an expert dairywoman and brewer - reputed to have turned water into beer.
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Great post thanks.

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”

― Hilaire Belloc

also remember Our Lord turned water into wine.

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected when received with thanksgiving (1 Ti 4:4).

I am very encouraged by the replies in his thread, emphasizing the agreement among Catholics, all acknowledging that sins can be forgiven.
 
tweedlealice said:
Has there been any miracles concerning Dorothy Day?? Just b/c someone made a mark in society w or w/o an abortion, doesn’t mean she’s a Saint. The abortion is a forgiven sin. How did Dorothy feel about it.? Did it overwhelm her w sadness. Did she accept her choice w regret? IDK. Miracles are important.
Blessings
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As was already posted earlier in the thread, Dorothy’s cause is not yet to the point of considering whether she has any miracles to her credit. If any were to come up now they’d probably be placed in her file but not investigated yet. There are preliminary steps to sainthood before the Church starts focusing on alleged miracles.

Also, as was already posted in the thread, Dorothy was absolutely miserable and remorseful about her abortion, considered it the great tragedy of her life, totally repented of it and both she herself and her biographers have written about this in great detail. Do you really think the Church would consider any person for sainthood who didn’t express remorse for a grievous sin?
 
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I really admire Dorothy Day. She is a tremendously important part of the Body of Christ. She is the type of person that we would all be much poorer without, and I wouldn’t want a whole Church full of people like her, like Paul or Peter. Such is the way of many great people.
 
Interesting - some years back I attended a one-man play by Leonardo Defilippis about Alessandro. Following the production, there was a Q&A session where he was described as being a saint. Wiki also states that, but doesn’t have a citation about it.

Capuchins are notoriously humble and demure men, so I don’t see them advocating for his cause. Maybe there was a clamoring for his canonization by the people that was never pursued by the friars.

Regardless of whether he’s ever canonized or just a small “s” saint; it’s a beautiful illustration of the radical redemption I spoke about.

It’s also an important, real-life example against capital punishment. Had he been executed, look at all the lives he touched, moved, converted, struck that would not have been had his life been taken.

Porn addicts certainly do need a patron saint, this sin is rampant in our country.

Deacon Christopher
 
Uriel1 said:
Yes indeed, but all who replied were sinners
including me
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Thanks.
I am still a sinner.
One of my permanent problems is my past sins. Have they been forgiven? Have I confessed correctly. I know God is merciful etc. but…
I will take up this problem later.
Most Catholics believe in contraception and divorce, is this sinful?
All we can do is hope in God. We really do not know where we stand.
 
NoelFitz said:
Most Catholics believe in contraception and divorce, is this sinful?
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Yes Noel, It is due to bad teaching, bad catechesis, and it is indeed sinful, a sin shared with the hierarchy who teach social justice but forget the basics. My diocese has even stopped teaching the First Communion kids that it is a sin to miss Mass deliberately so that when the confirmation kids were told that, they were astonished

David Pawson is maybe the best preacher on divorce
and he is not even Catholic

Ref our sins, forgiveness and and Confession: The Church teaches us that once any sin is properly confessed to a priest, God forgives it although temporal reparation may still be necessary. Some people find that quite hard to accept, due to their ingrained guilt but God has wiped the slate if we have both remorse and a will, never to commit that sin again.

You only have to confess it again, if you commit the same sin again, otherwise it is forgiven .

The Devil and his demons forget our particular sins forgiven through the Sacrament of Penance, as if they never existed, because God, in His goodness and mercy,also completely erases those confessed sins from their memories too.
 
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NoelFitz said:
Most Catholics believe in contraception and divorce, is this sinful?
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I would avoid making this assumption. Surveys that claim to be gathering the opinions of “most Catholics” are suspect because we don’t know what criteria they are using to define “Catholic”. In addition, there’s an unfortunate assumption on the part of many that if a Catholic married couple does not have several children, they must be using contraception, which is certainly not always the case as there can be a number of other circumstances resulting in this. I’ve been a Catholic for a long time and no one has ever asked me my opinion on either of these moral issues. Nor do I go around sharing it. I presume a lot of other Catholics also havent been asked and don’t share, and the ones who are most likely to be speaking up are those who think the contraception and divorce rules of the Church need to change.

Also, divorce is a tricky thing to generalize about. I think most Catholics, including practicing Catholics and many if not most priests, would not see a civil divorce as morally wrong in cases where the Catholic spouse had been abandoned or abused, as such a divorce is often necessary just to protect and/or support oneself or one’s children (for example, qualify for state benefits). If the Catholic spouse wishes to seek an annulment, they also would need to be civilly divorced. Therefore, in some cases the divorce is just a matter of common sense, and would not necessarily be sinful. The moral problem would only arise when and if the Catholic wished to remarry again without first getting the annulment.
 
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Uriel1 said:
My diocese has even stopped teaching the First Communion kids that it is a sin to miss Mass deliberately so that when the confirmation kids were told that, they were astonished
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Although I have not taught kids, I have repeatedly had an earful from those who do teach in the Catholic schools, as well as those who teach CCD or its equivalent.

As children receive Communion at about the age of 7 or 8, they all too often are in families where the parents may not make it to Sunday Mass regularly or at all. At times the choice for a Catholic school is based on reputation of training the children better than the equivalent public school, not because they (the parents) are committed Catholics. Others put their kids in CAtholic school to get what they can’t, themselves, teach of the Faith… I ahve heard too many times of parents showing up for the weekday children’s Mass, and not darkening the door on Sunday for whatever reason(s) or excuses.

Teaching young children that missing Mass is a sin may be correct moral theology, but it puts a 7, 8, 9 or older child in the position of being taught one thing and having parents who do just the opposite. It is said that the family is the foundation of teaching Faith; so what are the children being taught - that their parents (and possibly they ) are going to hell? Or are they being taught "never mind what they are teaching you at (school, CCD); it is not true?

So the teachers are between a rock and a hard place; and I would have a tendency to agree with the teachers, that teaching missing Mass on Sunday is a mortal sin to young children who a) have absolutely no control in the matter and b) will be given weekly evidence to the contrary by their parents, does not make sense.
 
NoelFitz said:
Even though she had an abortion this ‘Servant of God’ is on her way to canonization.

What do you think?
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I think it’s a great thing. Why would anyone think otherwise? Unlike what secularist think, people CAN and DO change.

We are not defined by our sins like secularists think.
 
NoelFitz said:
A priest in a homily in our Church claimed (as far as I can remember) that St Monica might have been a bit of a nag, which is define as one who harasses ‘(someone) constantly to do something that they are averse to’ (Webster).
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Well that’s pretty horrible…
 
So many parents force abortion for thier daughters. Any minor child in this quandary is not thier daughters fault.

I know this does not answer question. But it’s the parents sin not the minor child. It is thier own decision which rests on them, ie if they made the decision themselves without coercion.

I would imagine many children in this predicament made it to heaven and are saints.
 
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Poet said:
My only concern about this is that it’s going to be used by the left to claim that clearly abortion is pleasing to God. She should be canonized, regardless, if she meets the requirements. I just foresee many using it to claim that it proves abortion is fine, rather than seeing that God forgives sin, even abortion.
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If she’s ever canonized, I hope she becomes a patron of something that makes it obvious that abortion is evil.
 
Diaconia said:
Study this impressive man - Alessandro Serenelli . He murdered St. Maria Goretti, and after rehabilitation in prison became a Capuchin friar and was canonized himself.
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Hello Deacon,

Just to be clear, Alessandro Serenelli was not canonized. There has been talk of his potential canonization one day, but as of 2017, the Church has not opened a cause.

Some say he could one day be the “Patron of Pornaddicts,” but no cause has been opened as of 2017.

epicpew.com

Alessandro Serenelli, Future Patron of Porn Addicts?

Alessandro Serenelli murdered Saint Maria Goretti in 1902. But could this repentant murderer become the patron saint of those addicted to pornography?
epicpew.com
 
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So for Catholic parents do not teach evil to their Childten. For sure relations before sacramental marriage is a sin…then parents make it moreso by forcing abortion.
The child then lives a life of unworthiness. Yet Jesus Christ our Savior sees the remorse of the child.
If parents in this century would only realise that every baby is a blessing and not focus on what neighbors think it would eradicate abortion for Catholics. There are thousands of married couples waiting to adopt.
If taught what is right before God this too would save many babies.
No one though can assume the state of ones soul. It is for God to judge.
 
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